P 262 
•R7 N6 
Copy 1 



rockingham county: 

economic and 

Social 




The Rockingham County Club 

Univehsity of North Cabolina 
June, 1918 



A Word to You from the \ 
State 's Leading 'Bank 



The only road to success and pros- 
perity is that of Thrift. 

What is THRIFT? It is the saving 

of money and resources every day, | 

every week, all the time. l 



Every man, woman and child in Rocking- 
ham County should make 1918 the best 
known year by practicing Thrift continu- 
ously. 

Saving by fits and starts won't do it. Saving 
regularly will ! 

We invite you to use our Savings Certifi- 
cates and Checking Departments. You 
can do your banking with us by mail as 
well as in person. Write us to-day! 



WACHOVIA BANK AND 
TRUST COMPANY 

North Carolina's Largest and Strongest Bank 

Capital, Sl.250,000.00 



I 



ivjf.ii L^roimd. UYiive.Y5iT/. rsocKingham coLLYiry Club 

ROCKINGHAM COUNTY: 

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 



A LABORATORY STUDY AT THE UNIVERSITY 
OF NORTH CAROLINA, DEPARTMENT 
OF RURAL ECONOMICS AND • 
SOCIOLOGY 



ROCKINGHAM COUNTY CLUB 

L. H. Hodges, President 
W. E. Price, Vice-President and Business Manager 
R. B. GwYNN, Secretary and Treasurer 
T. D. Stokes, Editor-in-Chief 



OTHER MEMBERS : 

E. F. Duncan J. M. Gwynx C. H. Smith 

Reuben R. Ware Nathan Womack 



The expense of publication and distribution 
is borne by the advertising of wide-awake busi- 
ness men, and by the generous gifts of local 
University alumni. 



June, 1918 



1 o<i(r>^j 



RALEIGH 

Edwards & Broughton Printing Co. 

1918 



In Exchange 
Univ. of North OaroHna 
SEP 2 7 1833 



Contents 



PAGE 

Foreword ^ 

E. C. Branson. 

1. Historical Background 7 

T. D. Stokes. 

2. ISTatural Resources 14 

T. D. Stokes. 

3. Industries and Opportunities 18 

L. H. Hodges. 

4. Wealth and Taxation 24 

R. B. GWYNN. 

5. Facts About the Folks ,. 27 

E. F. Duncan. 

6. Farm Conditions and Practices. 34 

C. H. Smith and N. A. Womack. 

7. Home-Raised Food and the Local Market Problem 41 

T. D. Stokes. 

8. Agricultural Production : N'on-Food Crops 50 

T. D. Stokes. 

9. Our Public School Rank and Progress 53 

E. P. Duncan. 

10. Where We Lead 59 

T. D. Stokes. 

11. Our Problems and Their Solution 63 

W. E. Price. 

12. Sources of Information 73 



Acknowledgments 



The Rockingham County Club at the University of North Carolina 
gratefully acknowledges its indebtedness to the Reidsville Agricultural 
and Commercial Association for information, for many other courtesies, 
and for direct aid in placing this bulletin in the homes of Rockingham. 

The Association stands for an important doctrine, namely: the in- 
escapable interdependencies of trade and agriculture, the sympathetic 
federation of town and country interests, and the joint promotion of 
common purposes for mutual advantage. 

The future prosperity of Rockingham and every other county depends 
upon county-wide organization and cooperation based on mutual fair 
dealing. Suspicion, contest, and collision hurt everything, every busi- 
ness, and everybody in a county. They are destructive to progress and 
prosperity everywhere. 

Such are the common ideals of the Rockingham Board of Trade in 
Reidsville and the North Carolina Club at the University. 

W. E. Price, 
Vice-President and Business Manager of 
the Rockingham County Club. 



Foreword 



Rockingham County: Economic and Social is tlie work of the Rock- 
ingham County Club, in the headquarters of the North Carolina Club at 
the University, during the chance intervals of a busy college year. 

It has been good for these young men to explore the problems of life 
and business, progress and prosperity in their home county, to hunt 
down the conditions and causes that cripple and disable her civilization, 
and to puzzle at the ways and means of lifting her to the very highest 
levels of noble achievement. It has been a self-educative preparation 
for competent citizenship and intelligent public service. 

They have come to believe that it is a shame for any Rockingham 
County citizen to be ignorant about Rockingham County, no matter how 
much he may know about Greece and Rome. 

I strongly entertain the same belief, and I therefore suggest that this 
bulletin be used as a text-book by the seniors in the high schools of the 
county and by the public school teachers in their professional studies; 
and that it be thumbed thoroughly by the preachers as well as by the 
farmers, merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of the county. All of 
them will find it full of food for reflection. 

The study of Rockingham County by Rockingham boys at the Uni- 
versity is well worth while, but the study of Rockingham County by 
Rockingham people in Rockingham is even better; and it is the next 
step forward in the developing democracy of Rockingham. The people 
who have a genuine, generous interest in the welfare and well-being of 
their home county could do no better .thing than to bunch up in Rock- 
ingham for studies of this sort. Local Study Clubs: Essays at Citizen- 
ship is a new University bulletin that shows them how to do it. It can 
be had free of charge upon application to the Extension Bureau here. 

It may be important for the big outside world to know about the 
resources and advantages of Rockingham; about the opportunities she 
offers to capitalists seeking profitable investments in producing enter- 
prises, andf the bargains she has for western farmers in her soil and 
seasons, good roads, and excellent schools. But it is far more important 
for Rockingham people to have an intelligent grip upon their own 
problems of life and business. 

The future of the county depends upon native intelligence, native 
genius, and devoted home-bred leadership far more than it does upon im- 
ported capital however large, or imported men however enterprising 
and generous. 

Democracy develops from within. It cannot be laid on from without, 
dropped down as manna from above, or imported as a blessing from 



6 RocTiingham County: Economic and Social 

abroad. It must be the free outward evidencing of inner grace and grit. 
Every community rises, if it rise at all, by heroic tugging at its own 
boot-straps. 

This is our American ideal of Democracy; and it must be the ideal of 
Rockingham and of every other county and community in the United 
States. 

E. C. Branson, 
Department of Riiral Economics and Sociology, 
University of ls!orth Carolina 
Chapel Hill, June 1, 1918. 



The Historical Background of Rockingham 

T. D. Stokes. Ruffin, N. C. 

Location and >anie and Population 

Rockingham County was formed in 1785 from Guilford. It was named 
in lionor of Charles Watson Wentworth. Marquis of Rockingham, who 
was leader of the party in the British Parliament that advocated Ameri- 
can independence. He was Prime Minister of England when the Stamp 
Act was repealed. He was also a distinguished friend of America in 
the English Parliament, and acted in concert with William Pitt, Earl 
of Chatham, in opposition to Lord North. 

Wentworth, the county-seat, is 116 miles northwest of Raleigh, and is 
located very near the center of the county. It is built upon a high 
ridge that commands a beautiful view of the whole country for miles 
around. The court-house is a very handsome building, being one of the 
best in the State. It is an ornament to the town and an honor to the 
county. 

Before the Revolutionary War there were no townships in the county, 
and the only division was into "captain districts." After the adoption 
of the Constitution of 1868 the county was divided into seven townships. 
Subsequent divisions give eleven townships in all at present. The 
township in which the court-house is situated was called Wentworth in 
honor of the county seat. 

Rockingham is located in the northwestern part of the State. It is a 
north-central piedmont county and lies along the Virginia line. Rock- 
ingham is bounded on the north by Virginia, east by Caswell, south by 
Guilford, and west by Stokes. 

The population of Rockingham County was 36,442 in 1910. Today 
it is around 45,000. The people are chiefly native-born, and about 
a fourth are negroes. The whites are principally of English and 
Irish descent, "who learned the lesson of liberty at the feet of the 
prophets of the American Revolution that brought down the tables of 
the commandments of freedom from the smoking Sinais of that strug- 
gle; whose statesmen and orators have added to the parliamentary and 
forensic glory of the Nation; whose sons, falling in the defense of 
liberty, lie mouldering upon every battlefield of our Nation's glory; 
whose sons are brave and true; and whose women, fair as the dames of 
Caucasus, are as virtuous as they are fair." 

"All the physical features and attributes of Rockingham are in har- 
mony with the rare felicity of its geographical situation. The climate 



8 Rochingham County : Economic and Social 

is mild and genial, the rigor of its winters and the heat of its summers 
being tempered by the sheltering barriers of forests and mountains, and 
by the soft breezes from the sea. Its soil is fertile and wondrously 
varied in the range of its capabilities. Its majestic hills and smiling 
valleys unroll to the eye like a panorama of beauty and grandeur, and 
laugh into the harvest of plenty beneath the mystic touch of nature and 
men. From the bosom of its hills come the sunny streams which irrigate 
the landscapes and form by their union the majestic rivers whose rush- 
ing waters keep music with roaring wheels and humming spindles." 

The charms of Rockingham are thus preserved by Wheeler in his 
Sketches of North Carolina. « 

County Builders 

1. Hon. Thomas Settle, Senior (born 1791; died 1857), was born in 
this county. He was distinguished for his ability as a statesman and 
as a judge, and for his virtues, learning, and deportment, in every walk 
of life. He entered public life as a member of the House of Commons 
from Rockingham in 1816, and in 1817 succeeded Bartlett Yancey as 
Representative in the Fifteenth Congress. He was reelected to the Six- 
teenth Congress, but declined reelection. He was succeeded by Romulus 
M. Saunders. In 1826, Judge Settle had again returned to the State Leg- 
islature, and was reelected in 1827-'28. During the latter years he was 
Speaker of the House. His course as a member of the Legislature was 
marked by patriotism, consistency, and dignity. When the fiery cru- 
sades of party were directed by the energy of Robert Parker against the 
banking institutions of the State and the bill was carried, by one vote, 
to prosecute and crush the banks, Judge Settle as Speaker voted with 
the minority and prevented its passage. 

In 1832 he was elected one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, which 
elevated position he held, for nearly «i quarter of a century, with great 
satisfaction to the country and credit to himself. Increasing years 
caused his resignation. His health from the labor of a long life failed 
and, unusually lamented, he died in August, 1857. 

We give a correct genealogy of this family because it is seldom that 
a family less numerous can show more distinguished members. The 
Settles furnish two senators and four representatives in Congress, 
three judges, a Governor, and a formidable aspirant for the Presidency 
of the United States, besides others of the name distinguished for their 
ability and integrity. 

2. Thomas Settle, Junior, son of the above, whose sketch has just been 
presented, was born January 23, 1831. He was liberally educated at the 
State University and was graduated in 1850. Later he read law with 
Judge Pearson, and was licensed to practice in 1854. He was elected 



Historical Baclcground 9 

member of the Legislature from 1854 to 1859. The latter year he was 
chosen Speaker of the House. He was one of the federal electors in 
1856, and cast with others the vote of the State for Mr. Buchanan. 

In 1860 he advocated the claims of Stephen A. Douglas for the Presi- 
dency. How far personal influences or preferences influenced his judg- 
ment (for they were closely connected by marriage) is not known, but 
doubtless the matchless genius and brilliant eloquence of this distin- 
guished statesman greatly moved his supporters. 

He was electedt in 1865 a member of the State Convention, held in 
Raleigh, October 15, 1865, and in the same year he became a senator in 
the State Legislature, of which body he was chosen speaker. It is rare 
that the speakership of both bodies of our Legislature is conferred upon 
so youthful a public man. He took an active and prominent part in 
the Convention in devising means to reconstruct the broken-down walls 
of our political zone. In April, 1868, he was elected one of the Justices 
of the Supreme Court of the State. This elevated position he held until 
1871, when, on February 18th of that year, he was commissioned Envoy 
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Peru. He was also 
president of the National Convention that nominated Grant. In 1872 
he was nominated as a candidate for Congress in the Fifth Congres- 
sional District, opposing General James M. Leach. General Leach was 
elected by 268 majority. 

He was reappointed one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court 
of the State, which position he held until he was nominated as the 
Republican candidate for the governorship in 1876, and was defeated by 
Governor Vance by more than 13,000 votes. He was later appointed 
judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of 
Florida, January 30, 1877. 

3. Josiah and John Settle were brothers who came from England. 
John Settle located in Virginia. Josiah Settle located in Rockingham 
County. He was the father of David Settle, who married Rhoda Mul- 
lins. Their son Thomas was born 1789. Josiah Settle entered public 
life as a member of the State House of Commons in 1816 and 1817, and 
in 1819 he was elected Member of Congress. He declined reelection. 
Appeared again in public life in 1826 as a member of the House of 
Commons of North Carolina, and was reelected in 1827-'28. The last 
year he was Speaker of the House. In 1832 he was elected Judge of the 
Superior Court. 

4. His son Thomas was born in 1831. He was elected to the Legisla- 
ture in 1854-'55-'56, and during the last two years was Speaker of the 
House; was elected to the Senate and made President of the body in 
1865-'66; was elected Solicitor of the Fourth Judicial Circuit in 1859, 
and held this position for nine years, with the exception of one year 



-^Q Bocl-ingham Count i/: Economic and Social 

when he was in the Confederate Army; was elected as a Superior Court 
Judge and then as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of North 

Carolina in 1868. 

5 David Settle Reid was a native of Rockingham, the son of Reuben 
Reid He was born April 13, 1813. He was educated in the schools of 
the county and studied law. But he was more distinguished as a faith- 
ful and frank statesman than as a lawyer. Bold and intrepid, he often 
led where the timid hesitated, and when success had followed his efforts 
the sagacity and justice of his policies were generally conceded. 

His first appearance in public life was in 1835. as a senator from 
Rockingham County. Such was the wisdom of his course that he was 
continuously reelected by the people until 1840. He was then elected 
to the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses. In 1848 he was 
nominated for Governor by the Democratic State Convention, with- 
out his knowledge or consent. Defeat seemed to be a certain prospect 
for the Democrats. The Whigs had triumphed and were jubilant over 
victories won on a hundred fields. The opposition was well organized, 
and their leader, Charles Manly, was able, genial, and popular. 

But Mr. Reid felt it his duty to attempt what his friends felt certain 
that he could accomplish. He made a gallant canvass, and so greatly 
reduced the Whig majority that their leaders felt and knew that such 
another victory would ruin them. At the next convention, although he 
had written that under no circumstances could he again be a candidate, 
he was nominated and elected Governor of the State. The great issue 
urged upon the people of the State by Mr. Reid in the party campaign of 
1851 was free manhood suffrage. His election to the governorship 
ended Whig supremacy in the State. He served two years as Governor, 
and in 1854 he became Senator in the Congress of the United States, 
in which capacity he served until 1859. 

Governor Reid was keenly alive to the great trouble then approaching. 
He had been long in Congress, and was most observant of the affairs of 
the Nation. He felt that the ship of state, built by our fathers and 
freighted with all our hopes and happiness, was drifting on a lee-shore 
and in peril. He would have had this bitter cup pass from him, and 
with this hope he was a delegate with the sage and wise of our country 
to the Peace Congress at Washington in the year 1861. But its efforts 
were futile. The storm had arisen, and no human power could avert 
its fury. Governor Reid viewed with calm philosophy and sad resigna- 
tion the events of the Civil War period, and, though denied by age the 
privilege of going to the field, he contributed wisdom to the counsels of 
the Confederate Congress. 

Few men have enjoyed more fully the respect and affection of the 
people of the State than Governor Reid for unaffected simplicity of 



Historical Bad-ground 11 

character, stern integrity, and unsullied purity of life. The most 
prominent trait in the character of Governor Raid was the consistency 
and uniformity of his political career. Cautious and circumspect in 
forming his opinions, when once formed, his firmness and ability in 
maintaining them were heroic. No one who knew him. or who observed 
his long, successful, and brilliant career, could ever doubt where to find 
him. He was the unwavering supporter of popular rights and demo- 
cratic principles. 

6. John Henry Dillard was one of the Associate Justices of the Su- 
preme Court from Rockingham. He was born near Leaksville in 1825. 
He was a student at the University of North Carolina, and after com- 
pleting his sophomore year went to William and Mary College, Virginia, 
where he was graduated with high distinction. He was admitted to 
practice law in North Carolina at the age of twenty-one; moved to 
Patrick County, Virginia, and was elected commonwealth attorney, 
which office he filled with high credit to himself for several years. He 
married Anne J., daughter of the late Colonel Martin of Henry County, 
Virginia. After a few years he returned to Rockingham County and 
devoted himself to the practice of his profession with great diligence 
and success. He was elected county attorney of Rockingham and 
served in that capacity for many years. He was always noted for the 
accuracy with which his bills of indictment were framed; so much that 
his "forms" passed into the hands of other prosecuting attorneys, and 
have been used by them with unvarying success. Having been ap- 
pointed Clerk and Master in Equity, he became at an early age devoted 
to equity jurisprudence, in the practice of which he became pre- 
eminently distinguished. 

He removed from Rockingham County to Greensboro in 1868 and asso- 
ciated himself in the practice of law with Col. Thomas Ruffin of Orange, 
then a resident of Greensboro, and Col. John A. Gilmer of Greensboro,' 
the style of the firm being Dillard. Ruffln & Gilmer. 

Mr. Dillard was a man of imposing personal appearance, great sim- 
plicity and geniality of manner, and remarkable courtesy, especially to 
the younger members of the bar, who always received fr6m him the 
heartiest sympathy and encouragement, and who entertained for him 
a respect and admiration amounting often to the warmest affection. 
He was always decided in his political views and a faithful member of 
the Democratic party, though never a partisan or aspirant for political 
preferment. 

Judge Dillard was an elder in the Presbyterian Church at Greensboro, 
and a gentleman of unimpeachable character and incorruptible integ- 
rity, devoted to the institutions of the State, and ardently attached to 
every enterprise that tended to the moral and material growth and 
prosperity of North Carolina. 



12 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

7. Hamilton Henderson Chalmers, born in Rockingham County, Octo- 
ber 15, 1835, was one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of 
Mississippi. Judge Chalmers was graduated by the University of 
Mississippi in 1853, read law at Jackson in the law office of his relative, 
Hon. O. C. Glenn, then Attorney-General of the State and one of the 
most brilliant orators of the State. He resided for a short time in New 
Orleans, where he studied the civil law and was admitted to the bar. 
He was an ardent participant in the politics of the period, and though 
seeking no office became a prominent leader in the Democratic party of 
the State. Upon the accession of the Democratic party to the control 
of the State in 1875, he was preferred by the almost unanimous wish of 
the bar of his section, and was apppinted to the Supreme Court bench 
of the State at the early age of forty. 

Another Distinguished Son 

8. Daniel M. Courts was born November 26, 1820, in Rockingham 
County. He was graduated in law by the University of North Carolina 
in 1823. In 1836 he was elected Treasurer of the State, and was re- 
elected in 1838 by a Legislature differing from him in politics. In 1839, 
he was appointed consul of the United States at Matansas, which he 
accepted. He repaired to his post, but resigned in a short time. He 
removed to Rockingham and, in 1846, was elected from this county to 
the House of Commons, and again in 1848. In 1850 he was elected, 
without opposition. State Senator from Rockingham, and at the session 
of 1850-'51 he was elected Treasurer of the State. 

Our Contribution to the State and tlie Nation 

Rockingham County has furnished four Councilors of State: Thomas 
Henderson, Sterling Ruffin, Peter H. Dillard, and James "Watt, who 
were elected by the Assemblies of 1795, 1816, 1834-'35, 1836-'37, and 
1842-'43, in the order named. 

Rockingham has furnished only one Secretary of State — William Hill, 
who served for forty-eight years, from 1811 to 1859. William Hill held 
the office of Secretary of State longer than any person before or after 
him. 

The county has also furnished four Superior Court judges: Thomas 
Settle, who served from 1832 to 1857, a period of fifteen years; Thomas 
Ruffin, from 1861 to 1862; W. H. Mebane, from 1894 to 1895; and Henry 
P. Lane, from 1910 to the present day. Judge Lane is the youngest 
man ever elected Superior Court judge in North Carolina. 

Rockingham has produced two speakers of the State Senate, Alexan- 
der Martin and Thomas Settle, who were elected by the Assemblies of 



Historical Bacl-ground 13 

1805 and 1865-'66; and two Speakers of the House, Thomas Settle and 
John R. Webster, who were elected by the Assemblies of 1828 and 1887. 
Last and most important of all, she has given to the State four Gov- 
ernors, Alexander Martin, 1782-'85; D. S. Reid, who served for two terms, 
1851-'54; A. M. Scales, who served for two terms, 1885-'89; and R. B. 
Glenn, Avho served for two terms, 1905-'09. David Settle Reid was the 
first Democratic Governor elected by the people of North Carolina. 



The Natural Resources of Rockingham 

T. D. Stokes, Ruffin, N. C. 
Geography 

Rockingham is a north-central piedmont county and lies along the 
Virginia line. It is on the extreme eastern border of the western pied- 
mont region. The area of Rockingham county is 366,720 acres. Its 
topography on the whole is fairly level, although hills of medium size 
are found in the northwestern portion. The Meadows is a stretch of 
gently rolling country lying north of Dan River. 

The county is drained by the Dan River, flowing northwest, and Haw 
River, flowing east through the southeastern portion of the county. On 
both streams and their tributaries we find a large number of cotton 
mills, most of which are located at and near Spray. Grist mills also 
occur, scattered through the county on the streams. Several such 
water-power grist mills have sawmill attachments for doing custom 
sawing. Big Troublesome Creek, a tributary of Haw River, furnishes 
the town of Reidsville with its water supply. 

Our transportation facilities are fairly good. The main line of the 
Southern Railway runs through the eastern part of the county, passing 
through Reidsville; and a branch of the Southern comes up from 
Greensboro to Madison in the western portion. The Norfolk and West- 
ern and the Danville and Western railways traverse the northern 
district. 

Wentworth, the county seat, is six miles from the nearest railway 
station. The main wagon roads are good. Our rank in this particular 
in 1914 was eighth. An improved road goes from Reidsville through 
Wentworth to Leaksville, and from Wentworth to Madison. It is 
macadam and sand-clay and is in good condition. The unimproved 
roads are for the most part rough and steep, and offer an instructive 
contrast to the improved highways of the county. The most important 
roads are worked by county convict labor. 

Soils and Seasons 

The soils of the uplands are mostly of a light, gray, sandy loam, 
admirably adapted to the raising of fine yellow tobacco, and this fact 
has made Rockingham noted among the bright-leaf counties of the 
Southern tobacco belt. In some sections of the county the soil is red 
or a dark-gray loam, and produces heavy crops of wheat and other 
grains. In fact, all the soils of the county are suited to the production 



Natural Resources 15 

of wheat, oats, rye, corn, and other grains. They can all be laid down 
in permanent pastures when desired. 

But devotion to the single-crop system has sadly impeded the agricul- 
tural development of the county. Rockingham offers great opportuni- 
ties for dairy farming and beef production. The typical white lands, 
usually put in tobacco, produce large yields of crimson clover, soy 
beans, and other legumes. 

The soils of the county may be divided, further, into cecil clay, cecil 
loam, and cecil sandy loam, which give to Rockingham a wonderful 
variety of the most productive grain and grass soils in the entire pied- 
mont section. These cecil soils may be depended upon to produce corn, 
wheat, oats, rye, millet, herdsgrass, Bermuda, cowpeas, soy beans, and 
other cover crops in lavish abundance, under skillful farming. 

Both Irish and sweet potatoes can be grown with advantage, and this 
is especially true of sweet potatoes in sandy loams. The deep clay land 
is an inviting field for apple farming, and there are many old orchards 
in the county. No attempt has been made to grow apples on a com- 
mercial scale because our farmers are mainly absorbed in tobacco cul- 
ture. The tobacco soils found in the Rockingham belt are pronounced 
to be among the finest in the world; but it is a hazardous crop, even to 
those who have been born and bred to the work, and is not recom- 
mended to the home-seeker. 

The State Department of Agriculture in an official publication de- 
clares that the piedmont region of North Carolina is surpassed by no 
area in the South for corn, wheat, and clover production, and for live- 
stock farming. Rockingham is in this area, and has the distinct advan- 
tage of quick railway transportation to Northern market centers. The 
future of Rockingham depends not on tobacco culture, but on livestock 
farming, on the production of meat and dairy products. 

The climate of Rockingham County is temperate. It is free from 
excessive heat or cold. The spring and fall are ideal. The summer 
days are comparatively warm, but the nights are pleasant. The win- 
ters are short and mild. On the average, there are about three snow- 
falls a year. The rainfall is ample and well distributed throughout the 
year. Droughts seldom occur, and damage to crops is rarely suffered 
except on the poorer soils of the slate belt. 

A Land of Larg'e Farm Owners 

Practically all the land is held in large farms by resident owners. 
The antebellum type of planters is still found in large numbers in 
Rockingham County. In the early days most of the immigrants who 
came to Rockingham were slave-holders, and this accounts for the large 
number of big farms at the present time. The early settlers owned a 
great many slaves, and hence they could cultivate large plantations. 



16 Bocl-inyham County: Economic and Social 

But the inevitable multiplication of small farms by the tenancy system 
of tobacco culture is in operation in Rockingham. 

Classified according to size, 938, or nearly one-third, of the farms are 
less than fifty acres in size. There are 843 farms between 50 and 100 
acres in size; but there are 1,2'74 farms between 100 and 500 acres in 
size, and 29 having between 500 and 1,000 or more acres each. It is 
thus seen that the typical Rockingham farmer is the large farmer, and 
it is he on whom rests the hope of future agricultural development and 
country culture in the county. The soil, therefore, is the greatest natu- 
ral asset of the county. 

Timber Resources 

Approximately 51 per cent of Rockingham is woodedi area. The 
original forest of hardwood and pine, amounting to about 14 per cent of 
the whole, occurs in small quantities here and there throughout the 
county. In this type of hardwoods, the principal ones — oak, hickory, 
black-gum, and maple — all occur in commercial quantities; the several 
other species are of minor importance. The original forest pine attains 
a size of 80 to 120 feet in height and two to four feet in diameter. 

The total stand of timber in the county is estimated at nearly 90,- 
000,000 feet board measure, or about 465 feet per acre, for all the forest 
land. The different species occur in about the following proportions: 
swamp growth pine 43 per cent, only one-seventh of which is short leaf, 
forest pine 7 per cent, and hickory 3 per cent. 

Logging is carried on in small ways only. The largest mills do not 
exceed an average output of 700,000 feet per year, while the average 
annual cut of the nearly forty mills is a little over 200,000 feet. The 
total annual cut for the county is a little more than eight or nine mil- 
lion feet. 

Our hardwood areas should be managed so as to produce a large pro- 
portion of oak and poplar. Both these species are vigorous trees in this 
region, and both make desirable and valuable lumber. The reproduc- 
tion of oaks can be secured from sprouts where the trees are not of a 
very large size; but in order to secure poplar, trees of this species should 
be left on the cut-over area. Inferior trees of that species should be 
taken off the ground to secure a desirable second crop. If near a town, 
the market for cordwood usually makes this financially possible. The 
selection system, using a low diameter limit for the inferior species, 
will tend to raise the standard of the forest. Large openings in the 
crown cover must be prepared for the reproduction of pine. 

Forty and sixty years ago destructive forest fires swept across the 
northwestern part of the county, and the signs can still be seen. Such 
intense fires have not occurred, however for a long time, though small 
surface fires are occasionally set by sparks from locomotives on the 
railroads. 



?^atumJ Resources 17 

Dairy Farming 

The fertile farm lands around Reidsville and throughout Rockingham 
County are especially adapted to the growing of grains, grasses, and 
clovers, which makes this the most attractive region along the whole 
middle Atlantic slope for the dairy and beef farmer. In the dairy dis- 
tricts of Missouri and Iowa the high price of land and the adverse 
climate add largely to the fixed charges on dairy farms, requiring costly 
barn constructions, long periods of barn storage, and in frequent in- 
stances restricting or eliminating permanent I'otating pastures. 

In Rockingham County, land that can be made to produce as much 
grain and grass as any of the lands in the states named can be had for 
about one-fifth the price. Our winters are mild, thus it is not necessary 
for the dairy farmers to put so much money in costly buildings. The 
long grazing season allows them to raise cattle on rotating pastures. 
Our climate allows the dairy farmer in Rockingham to produce hogs, 
poultry, and eggs as profitable by-products; and also to raise his calves 
at a minimum expense. 

In 1914, Virginia, North Carolina, and six other Southern States 
bought $65,000,000 worth of butter and cheese from points north of the 
Ohio and Potomac rivers. Why not do more dairy farming and keep 
this money from going out of the State? Here is a great opportunity 
for enterprising farmers in Rockingham. 



Industries and Opportunities 

L. H. Hodges, Leaksville, N. C. 

Our people proudly call Rockingham the Gem of the Piedmont. And, 
indeed, in many particulars our county is one of the most advanced 
counties in the two Carolinas. She is especially famous for her tobacco 
factories, cotton mills, and various other industries. 

We find that North Carolina has more cotton mills than any other 
State in the Union, and Rockingham is one of the leading cotton mill 
counties of the State. Few people have any idea, or at least any com- 
prehensive idea, of the size and importance of our manufacturing estab- 
lishments. In 1915 there were 73 industrial enterprises in Rockingham 
with a total capital of $37,659,500 and 11,508 operatives. The yearly 
output was $169,913,885. (Since that date the value of our mill and 
factory products has nearly doubled.) These 73 industries are classified 
into cotton and woolen mills, tobacco factories, buggy and wagon 
factories, job printeries, roofing, ice, and brick plants, and numerous 
others too varied for classification. These are the figures obtained from 
local authorities. 

We have all the requirements necessary for successful industries — 
good climate, excellent water power, abundant labor, ready capital, raw 
materials, and ample transportation facilities. 

Climate 

Our climate is typical of the middle Atlantic Piedmont region. It is 
free from extremes of both summer heat and winter cold. It is a com- 
fortable area for industrial workers, and very few of them emigrate. 
We have an excellent hill-country drainage which helps to keep down 
diseases of various kinds. Well-organized welfare departments look 
after the health and comfort of the folks. Rockingham is a region of 
industry, health, and happiness. 

Raw Materials 

We are blessed by being situated in the heart of the best tobacco- 
growing area of the Piedmont. The fertility and variety of our soils 
make Rockingham one of the most profitable farm counties in North 
Carolina. Our tobacco factories therefore have raw tobacco in abun- 
dance right at their doors, and naturally the tobacco industry is a lead- 
ing one in the county. The output of our tobacco factories is based 
mainly on the tobacco that we raise here at home. We also have easy 
access to the great cotton fields of our own and the near-by States, and 



Industries and Opportunities 19 

thus the material for our next great industry is within close range of 
us. Practically all our raw materials are secured from near-by farm 
areas and markets. 

Bailroad Advantages 

We are peculiarly well favored with good transportation facilities. 
Reidsville, near the center of the county, is on the main line of the 
Southern Railway, and the county thereby gets the benefit of a main 
trunk line for its imports and exports. We have the Southern Railway 
on the east of the county, the Norfolk and Western on the west, and 
the Danville and Western runs as far as Leaksville at the northern 
end of the county. 

There is urgent need for a branch line from Leaksville-Spray, our 
industrial center, to either Reidsville or Stoneville, preferably Reids- 
ville. Any products that are shipped out of Leaksville-Spray or Draper 
must be sent to Danville or Martinsville, Virginia, before they can get 
to either Northern or Southern markets. There is great necessity for a 
trunk line through these towns. 

We have improved public highways throughout the county which 
facilitates our hauling and marketing. There are 850 miles of these 
roads. They are mainly of sand-clay construction, with some macadam. 
Our county is growing rapidly, but it needs to be better provided with 
good highways in order that we may more easily market our farm and 
factory products. 

Capital Invested 

It is hard to say at this time just what is the total capital invested 
in Rockingham industries. No figures have been given to the public 
since 1915, and since that date our industries have jumped far ahead 
of their figures of three years ago. In the last report of the State Labor 
Commissioner, 18 of our manufacturers declined to disclose the capital 
they employed. Omissions of this kind keep us from making a proper 
showing for our county. This report shows only 43 industrial enter- 
prises with a combined capital of only $3,088,000. 

Most of the capital invested in the county is by foreign corporations, 
notably the American Tobacco Company, and the Thread Mills Com- 
pany, a branch of the Marshall Field Company of Chicago. 

In the 1916 report of the State Department of Labor we find $2,666,000 
invested in cotton and woolen mills. Since that date four new mills 
have gone up and are now in operation in Leaksville-Spray-Draper, 
which is a brisk industrial center in the northern part of the county. 
Our investment in other industries, not counting the Penn Branch of 
the American Tobacco Company and a few other industries of minor 
sort, is more than $500,000. These totals look small, and they are, 
but we make a poor showing because the mill owners fail to make 
reports in full to the State departments. 



20 Bocl'iughani County: Economic and Social 

Much more capital than is here listed has been invested in Rocking- 
ham, but the figures we present give at least a hint of our industrial 
wealth and enterprises. The output of our factories is tabulated at the 
end of this chapter. 

Machiiierj-, 3Iaiiag'enieiit, and Labor 

We are proud to sa.y that all our factories are equipped with the best 
modern machinery and with other aids to maximum production. The 
new tobacco factory that is going up at Reidsville will be completely 
outfitted and modern. This is also true of the sheeting mill at Draper, 
the bleachery at Spray, and the bedspread and knitting mills at Leaks- 
ville. 

There is excellent cooperation between the managements and the 
operatives. Each strives to aid the other, and there is unbroken harmony 
between them. Many things promote this good feeling between em- 
ployers and employees — good wages, excellent -health conditions, and the 
character of workers and foremen. Agencies that go to keep things 
running in smooth order are Y. M. C. A's and the departments of welfare 
and health. The Y. M. C. A. has frequent social events to which em- 
ployers and employees are both invited, and where they are privileged 
to discuss common problems and to know each other better. The 
departments of welfare and health encourage properly kept yards and 
houses, and offer prizes for the best conditioned house and yard. They 
also hold community center meetings and serve in many ways to 
encourage and promote democratic ideals and true fellowship. 

There seems to be no danger of a war between capital and labor in 
our county. 

Our Tobacco Industries 

The tobacco goods of our county go into practically every city in the 
United States. Made-in-Rockingham brands are famous the country 
over. 

Some of the earliest tobacco plants in the United States were located 
in Rockingham, and today the annual tobacco output of Reidsville alone 
amounts to 9,500,000 pounds of plug and 1.750.000 pounds of smoking 
tobacco, having a value of $7,500,000. Hundreds of people find employ- 
ment here, and the salesmen on the road are having such success with 
these products that the factories are running $2,000,000 behind in 
orders. Practically every large concern in America has its buyers in 
Reidsville markets. The American Tobacco Company has a branch in 
Reidsville — the F. R. Penn factory. From this one factory goes four 
million dollars worth of plug tobacco year by year. In 1914 the Penn 
factory paid out $461,000 for revenue stamps and probably a full mil- 
lion dollars during the year ending on June 30, 1918. 



Industries and importunities 21 

R. P. Richardson operates in Reidsville a large granulated tobacco 
factory. This concern makes the "Old North State" brand of smoking 
tobacco which is famous throughout the country. All in all, Reidsville 
makes Rockingham County one of the leading centers of the United 
States in the production of tobacco goods. 

Because of this vigorous industry in Rockingham, we have naturally 
attracted many other industries into this prosperous manufacturing 
area. Our capital stock has been augmented by the advent of factories 
making paper goods, fertilizers, tobacco sacks, while job printeries and 
other collateral industries have sprung up and flourished. We have a 
good reason for being proud of our tobacco industries and of the excel- 
lent opportunities they offer to so many breadwinners. 

Our Textile Mills 

There are now in the county 16 mills, as follows: 10 cotton mills, 2 
woolen mills, 1 knitting mill. 1 bleachery, 1 sheeting mill. These have 
a combined capital stock of nearly $7,500,000, and employ several thou- 
sand men, women, and children. The mills are all progressive and 
prosperous, and offer most excellent advantages to any one who cares 
to have real work to do at good wages in pleasant communities. 

Thirteen of these mills are at Leaksville-Spray-Draper, a triple town 
in the northern part of the county. The products of these mills are 
found in every State in the Union and in almost every nation of the 
world. These three neighbor-towns have made rapid progress under 
their excellent systems of town and mill management, and with the 
introduction of improved railway facilities and first-class bakeries, 
laundries, and ice plants and the like, this factory center bids fair to 
spring into such prominence as Durham, Winston-Salem, Gastonia, and 
Charlotte have won. 

The Mayo Mill system at Mayodan is an extensive textile establish- 
ment. It has the largest capital stock of any mill in the county, and 
gives excellent employment to a thriving and busy population. The 
mill is the backbone of the town. Mayodan is a town with a backbone 
but with no backache. 

The Edna Mills, at Reidsville, is not so large a mill as some of the 
others, but it is growing. It is an attractive factory and it plays fair 
with its employees. It ranks among the model cotton mills of the State. 
Reidsville, however, is most widely known for her tobacco factories, and 
she is proud of her success in this field of enterprise, but she can also 
speak with pride of her cotton mills and other thriving industries. 

Other Establishments 

The main industries under this heading are lumber mills, bakeries, 
bottling works, construction companies, repair shops of various kinds. 



22 Eochingham County: Economic and Social 

flour and roller mills, printeries and the like. Their combined total 
capital stock in 1915 was over $500,000. It was probably more, but this 
total is all the owners were willing to report to the State Department 
of Labor. 

They are all busy, and most of them are prosperous, but they are not 
keeping pace with the development of our tobacco factories and our 
cotton mills. We need more industries of a diversified sort, and they 
ought to be modern and well equipped. There are excellent advantages 
along our railroads for the building of factories of every kind. The 
field is far from being fully occupied. 

For instance, we are nearer to the forest areas of hardwood than High 
Point is, and our facilities for shipping hardwood products are just as 
good. It seems strange that wood-working industries — furniture fac- 
tories and the like — have not been developed in this favored area. 

This chapter has been based on the incomplete figures furnished by 
the mill and factory managements of the county to the State Labor Com- 
missioner. They cover the year 1915. We know in a general way what 
industrial progress Rockingham has made during the last three years. 
Establishments, capital, employees, and output have been doubled in 
most instances and trebled in many others. 

Rockingham is well in the lead in manufacture, butvwe are not satisfied 
to stop where we are. We must work as a unified, energetic people to 
put Rockingham over the top in industrial wealth and enterprise. It 
was effort of this sort that put our three Liberty Loans across; and it is 
just this kind of common purpose and effort that is needed to put Rock- 
ingham into the forefront of every good thing and to keep her there. 

TEXTILE MILLS IN ROCKINGHAM 

Annual 
Toicn. Mill. Overatives. Capital. Output. 

Draper Wearwell Sheeting Mills. . . . 150 

Draper German-American Mill 230 $600,000 $975,000 

Leaksville. .Wearwell Bedspread Mill... 300 

Leaksville. .Athena Knitting Mills 200 

Mayodan . . . Mayo Mills 855 

Reidsville. .Edna Cotton Mills 220 

Spray Leaksville Cotton Mills 308 

Spray Lily Mills 124 

Spray Morehead Cotton Mills 115 

Spray Nantucket Mills 411 

Spray Rhode Island Mill 275 

Spray Spray Cotton Mill 218 

Spray Leaksville Woolen Mills.... 115 

Spray Spray Woolen Mills 150 

Spray American Warehouse Co 250 

Spray Spray Bleachery 100 



650.000 


1.500,000 


120,000 


412,000 




499.000 


88,600 


190,000 


163,000 


265,000 


260,300 


519,000 


208.000 


600,000 


200,000 


600,000 


270,000 


250,000 


105,000 


250,000 



Industries and Opportunities 



23 



e T-i ■ 



o o 
o o 


O O O 

o o o 


o o o o o 
o o o o o 


o o 

o o 

CO r-l 


o o o 
o o o 
e<i o o 


o o o o o 
o o o o o 

in T-H O ir; C> 


CO 


7-H LO CO 


<M o e\i o 



H 
Q 

SO 

o 

-9! 
Kl 



Pi o 

OJ o 

-e o 

CO ei_i 

"^ ^ s 



fl a> 0) Q S 

Kl O) C !5 ?^ 

^ b ^ o ^ 



i-i to 



PU 



o 



0) o 
cS P-i 



1^ 



^^ J-" '-' 

g OJ o 



-^ t^ S^ 

EhOOh 



,-;o 



o "^ -c 



a u 



be O 








o 


^ 


8 




O 




am 








c 


rH 




a 


m 




r) 


1-5 


a 




IS 


tu 




X 


1-5 


H&H<J 



bO 

;::;+-' o 
^ c ° c 



02 

bO 

CO '^ 

"S ° o 
.5 "^ o 

^ S^ " 
(V ^ a 

■*J rQ ^ 

rt o o 

M bo bJO 

a a a 
rt •-: o o 






to & S >■ 






^ O ^ *-i 

s* =^ s ° 



'C rt S „ 

pL, "Si O to ^H 
o 5 to O o 



O (S 



X 


o 


cC 


D 


m 






0) 








0) 


ill 


t-l 




o 


i:^ 


fl 



be 

3 6 

co^"^ 

b ° S 

c^S O R 



u 



Q 



_bC o 73 

b ~ ' 



O 0! 



be a 

■M ctS 



:::30 



ao 



o «2 I) • ■ 

Pi S CLh CL, tf Pi 



.S o 



bcPHSS-'^-'26'bcWg<j5 
PitfmtnPiHi-ii-iK^^ 



2 «= Pi V > 



o >>>- o o o _. '^ '>>'>'>! '^ '^ '^ '^ '> '^ >'> 'J > >. > > 

E-l 55ffi5?^22o'/3tp!P73!/3!PtP!»tfitP!/3tP!pl/3S3>>aiaitt>aJ 

TO TO 03 ^ ~^ ~i f^,* .^ .^ .^ .^ .^ .^ .^ ,^ .^ .,_( ,^ .^ .^ .^ V^ ;_, Q — Q Q 

<uci)<Bo:o3o!o3(Daia>a>a)<Da>aia>(Da)a)(i)aiSQ^^^3^ 

jjJSSSSWKPiPiPiPiPiKPiPiPiPiPiPiPiMjnaicna! 



Facts About Wealth and Taxation 

Robert B. Gwynx, Leaksville, N. C. 

Industries 

The reader is reminded thiat this and other chapters are based on 
tables that close each discussion. 

Rockingham is both an agricultural and an industrial county. While 
agriculture is and always has been the occupation of a majority of the 
inhabitants, industries, and especially the textile mill industries, have 
had a tremendous growth during the last ten years. Leaksville-Spray, 
including Draper, has more than doubled its investment in cotton and 
woolen industries since 1910. Since the beginning of the World War 
five new cotton mills have been erected by Marshall Field & Co. Leaks- 
ville-Spray is a community of 9,000 people, eight-ninths of whom have 
moved into this growing mill center since 1900. 

The town of Reidsville, with a population of some eight thousand 
people, is chiefly engaged in tobacco manufacturing, as is also the 
smaller town of Stoneville. In Mayodan, a smaller town of the county, 
there is also a textile mill. The total investment in textile mills in 
1915 was about $2,666,000. Or at least, this was the total reported to the 
State Labor Commissioner. 

Other industries in the county are lumber and timber mills, soft drink 
factories, flour and meal mills, wagon and buggy factories, brick fac- 
tories, and several others of minor importance. Rockingham is coming 
more and more to the front as a growing industrial county; but the 
reluctance of our industrial concerns to report the details of their busi- 
ness makes it impossible for me to establish our rank and progress. 

Agriculture 

Rockingham is still largely an agricultural county. In 1910 she 
ranked 31st in the State in farm wealth with a total of $6,050,152, a tre- 
mendous increase of 68.7 per cent over the values of 1900. Since the 
census year the total farm wealth has increased at about the same ratio 
until at the present time it is nearly double what it was in 1910. Im- 
proved methods of agriculture have been largely responsible for this 
Increase. The chief agricultural product is tobacco. In 1910 Rocking- 
ham produced 8,280,000 pounds of tobacco. Only Pitt County stood 
ahead of us. The wealth produced by tobacco is now far greater than 
ever, because our farmers are obtaining good prices of late — prices 
nearly three times better than those of 1910. Here is the explanation 
of our great increase in the value of farm properties since the census 
year. 



Wealth and Taxation 25 

Our farmers are also coming more and more to realize the need of 
producing sufficient meat, wheat, corn, potatoes, hay, and forage for 
their own needs at least, and are consequently endeavoring to produce 
these necessary supplies in addition to their tobacco, thus bringing 
about a better-balanced farm system. In agriculture as well as in manu- 
facture Rockingham is fast becoming one of the most progressive and 
up-to-date counties in the State. 

General Facts 

This county stood 15th in the State in taxable property in 1913, with 
a total of $12,335,873. This was an increase of 80 per cent over the total 
of 1903; the State increase was only 81 per cent. In taxable wealth 
and in professional and income taxes paid, Rockingham ranks among the 
15 richest counties of the State. These are facts about wealth and 
taxation for us to be proud of. Since 1910 our farm properties have 
more than doubled in value; that is to say, our total farm wealth is now 
around twelve million dollars. Our industrial capital alone is around 
seven million dollars. These estimates fairly indicate tremendous gains 
since the new century began. One thing that has helped to produce 
this wonderful increase in wealth is the excellent road and highway 
conditions throughout the county. In 1914 we ranked 8th among the 
counties of the State in improved roads and highways. Wealth, good 
roads, and good schools are the basis of social progress and develop- 
ment. Rockingham has its faults, and some of them rather serious ones. 
It has its problems to be solved, but we have the resources, the intelli- 
gence, and the will to solve them. 

A county with $4 in motor cars for every single dollar in school 
property has the wealth, to say the least. 

HOW ROCKINGHAM RANKS IN WEALTH 

Rank. Rank indicates how many counties made a better showing. 

31st in total farm wealth, 1910 census $6,050,152 

15th in total taxable wealth. 1913 $12,335,873 

Ten-year increase, 80%; State increase. 81%. In 1916 
the total had moved up to $13,371.387 — a clear mil- 
lion-dollar increase. 

91st in farm wealth increase, 1900 to 1910, per cent 68.7 

State increase, 130%. 
59th in increase in value of domestic animals, 1900 to 1910, 

per cent 97.0 

State increase, 109%; Robeson, 200%. 

87th in per capita country wealth $191 

Alleghany, $560; State, $322; U. S., $994; lo.va, $3,386. 
Per capita taxable wealth all property in 1910 was 
$207. White per capita taxable wealth in 1910 was 
$279; negro per capita taxable wealth in 1910 was 
$28.80. 



26 Rochingham County : Economic and Social 

74th in negro farm owners, per cent of all negro farmers. ... 24 

State average, 33%. Negro farm owners in Rocking- 
ham, 180. White farm owners in Rockingham are 
51% of all white farmers; in North Carolina, 68%. 

58th in tax rate (State and county) on the $100 in 1913 $.98 

42 counties had a higher rate. Yancey County highest. 
$1.68%. In 1916 our rate was the same, but 49 
counties had a higher rate, Clay highest, $2.02%. 
19th in tax value of farm land; compared with census value, 

1910, per cent 34 

State average, 38%r. Average tax value of our land in 

1916 was $8.41 an acre; around a fifth of current 
market values. 

11th in State income taxes paid, 1913 $1,077.85 

33 counties paid no income taxes in 1913, 32 paid none 
in 1914, and 26 none in 1916. Income taxes in 
Rockingham in 1916, $1,733; rank, 10th. 

17th in professional taxes paid, 1913 $240 

48 lawyers, dentists, doctors, photographers, archi- 
tects, etc., in Rockingham. Only 3 in Rowan; none 
at all in Harnett, Duplin. Caswell, and Avery on the 
tax list. In 1916 the total was $315; rank, 15th. 

56th in white farm mortgages, per cent 19 

State average for whites, 17%o. 

35th in negro farm mortgages, per cent 25 

State average for negroes, 26%. For both races 18.5%o 
in North Carolina. 

8th in improved roads in 1914, per cent 52 

313 miles of improved roads in Rockingham. 

36th in per capita bank capital, 1915 $6.34 

State average. $8.51. New Hanover highest, $40.06; 
Stokes, $2.51; Caswell last with 33 cents. 

34th in per capita bank loans and discounts, 1915 $32.50 

State average, $45.28. New Hanover highest, $296; 
Stokes. $14; Caswell next to last with $2.90. 
43rd in per capita investment in public school property, 

1915-'16 $4.16 

State average, $4.78. New Hanover highest, $11.89; 
Stokes, $2.19; Caswell, $1.86; and Graham lowest, 
$1.09. 

27th in per capita investment in automobiles $15.56 

State average, $12.43. Greene highest, $29.91; Cas- 
well, $10.90; Stokes, $9.59; and Yancey lowest with 
24 cents. Rockingham has nearly four times as much 
wealth in motor cars as in schools. Our cars in 

1917 numbered 1,000 — a fourfold increase in 3 years. 



Facts About the Folks 

E. F. Duncan, Mayodan, N. C. 

Our facts about the folke in Rockingham County are based on the 
table at the end of the chapter. These come mainly from the last 
Federal Census. They are true for the dates given, not for the year 
1917. Only once every ten years does any county in the United States 
have a chance to take stock of itself. However, the facts we give are 
suggestive. They show us certain drifts and tendencies in our county, 
and enable us to compare Rockingham with other counties of the State. 

Density of Population 

In 1910 the total population of the county was 36,442. Although 
Rockingham ranks twenty-ninth in size, only nine counties in the State 
have a larger population. Our rural population was 54.6 people per 
square mile. Only ten counties in the State had more. This means, of 
course, small farmers and a closely settled farm population, which is a 
distinct social advantage. Rural people like to have neighbors fairly 
near by. Often they become dissatisfied and move into town simply to 
mingle with folks. But our density of rural population also means that 
Rockingham is located in the great industrial area of North Carolina. 
Industries depend on an abundant labor supply in the surrounding 
territory, and this we have in Rockingham, just as in Forsyth, Durham, 
and Gaston. 

This desire for association, together with other factors, has caused 
our city and town population to increase at the expense of the rural 
communities of Rockingham and the adjoining counties, but so far it 
has not alarmingly decreased our rural population. In spite of the low 
prices of farm products during the first ten years of the new century 
and the call of the cities for industrial workers, our rural population 
increased 5.7 per cent, and it was mainly a white increase. This means 
that our farmers, the producers of bread and meat for our town popu- 
lations, are fairly well holding their own in numbers if not in pros- 
perity. Since 1910 the proportion of our rural population has fallen 
from four-fifths to two-thirds of our total population, while our town 
dwellers have increased from 7,200 to 20,000 or more. 

Law and Order 

Usually when the countryman moves to town he takes with him his 
love for elbow-room, his independent, democratic spirit. He has had 
no one to dictate to him about what time he shall go to work, when he 
may stop, how much he may talk and laugh, how loud he may yell, 



28 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

where his pig-pen shall or shall not be, on which side of the street he 
may tie his horse, and how long he may leave him. In short, he has 
been his own boss. When he gets to town, town customs and ordinances 
are all new to him. It takes time for him to become socially adjusted, 
and it is during this time that most of our fights and homicides occur. 
Misunderstandings often become shotgun affairs. Here, in brief, is an 
explanation of our homicide rates in Rockingham and the rest of the 
State. They are too high, but they are due to the rapid growth of our 
small towns and cities. 

Kookiiigham County Patriotism 

Perhaps no county in the State has worked with a greater spirit of 
patriotism than Rockingham for our country and our, allies in the 
present crisis. She has been one of the foremost counties of the State 
to sacrifice her sons and. to give her dollars for the cause of liberty and 
humanity. Company E was among the first to reach war strength by 
the addition of volunteers. Rockingham has over-subscribed her share 
of the three Liberty Loan issues, and she contributed freely to the Red 
Cross and the Army Y. M. C. A. funds. These war loans and gifts were 
not made by wealthy men alone, but by preachers, teachers, students, 
school children, factory employees, farmers, and business men alike. 
Besides all this, last November found many housewives, white and 
colored, pledgfng themselves to aid Mr. Hoover in the conservation of 
food supplies. Others today are helping Uncle Sam by the purchase 
of Thrift Stamps. At the meeting of the Committee on War Savings 
Stamps in Raleigh the other day, Rockingham was represented by a 
larger delegation than any other county in the State. 

Marriage, Birtli, and Death Kates 

The development of a community is closely related to the marriage, 
birth, and death rates. 

In the number of marriages per thousand of population in 1914, we 
ranked twenty-second, which is to say, only twenty-one counties made a 
better showing. We ought to have the same high rank in birth rates, 
but in this particular 61 counties made a better showing in 1915. Those 
who believe that there is a world-wide danger of race suicide should 
study these facts closely. We are fairly near the top in marriage rate 
but too near the bottom in birth rate. The reasons therefor challenge 
the thought of all who are interested in our future. 

In our death rate, 12.1 per thousand inhabitants in 1915, we are a 
little below the average of the State and well below that of the United 
States. Forty-one counties made a better showing, but our excess of 
births over deaths was 20 per thousand inhabitants, and, comparatively, 
this is an excellent showing. 



Facts About the Foils 29, 

Factory Work and Motherhood 

Whether our low birth rate is in any way related to the fact that many 
of our girls and mothers work in the factories is a question which our 
industrial captains, as well as our health departments, can well afford 
to ponder over. It is an economic as well as a social problem. It con- 
cerns wealth as well as welfare. And the problem here, as well as else- 
where, is heightened by the absence of so many of our men in the service 
of their country. If our farms are to be improved, our waste lands made 
productive, and our industries expanded, our birth rate must far exceed 
our death rate. 

It is just as important to lower the death rate as it is to increase the 
birth rate. The difference between the two is what counts. 

The economic and social conditions in which most of our children 
live present the most vital problem that any community has to consider. 
In many of our well-to-do homes we usually find only one or two chil- 
dren, or perhaps none at all. On the other hand, in most back alleys 
and in many factory settlements we find as many as six, eight, ten, or 
even more children in the home. 

This does not mean that the women in our factories tend to have more 
children than women who work outside. Many of these large families 
have just moved in from country communities. . It does show, however, 
that the birth rate is related to farm conditions, factory conditions, home 
conditions, and a score of other causes that need to be studied by our 
thoughtful people. 

A main question for our leaders to ask is, How are we to raise the 
level of our community? If ignorance and poverty tend to multiply 
themselves faster than education and wealth, what is our problem? 
Do not these people who furnish the workers for our industries and the 
fighters for our armies deserve the very best that we can give? These 
are some of the things that we need to think about. 

And our leaders are alive to these problems. The factories have won- 
derfully improved the conditions under which their employees labor, 
as well as the homes in which they live. Some of our most recent tenant 
houses rival many of our most comfortable and coveted bungalows. 
Besides all this, some of our factories employ one or more trained nurses 
to look after the health conditions of their employees and to care for 
them while sick. 

Our Health Work 

In this connection we ought to mention the health work done in 
Rockingham. We have come to realize fully that it is important for a 
community to do everything in its power to keep the people well, and 
so several competent physicians and nurses are employed to look after 
the concerns of community sanitation and health. They are public 
health workers paid by school and factory authorities. 



30 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

All children in the schools, both white and colored, are examined, and 
as far as possible cared for by the school nurses. Besides being good for 
the children, it is an advantage to keep them able to be regular in their 
attendance at school. 

As a result of the cooperation of various agencies in this work, much 
sickness has been prevented, many epidemics avoided, smallpox almost 
eradicated, typhoid moved toward zero, and the general death rate 
appreciably lowered. 

However, Rockingham County employs no whole-time public health 
officer, as do thirteen other counties of the State. Here is a step for- 
ward that our county commissioners need to take. 

Social Welfare Activities 

Otherwise, Rockingham is striving to do as much for the social wel- 
fare of its people as any other county in the State. Our good women 
have organized various clubs and societies which contribute to the good 
fellowship of our people and the beauty of our towns. 

The Junior Order of American Mechanics has contributed largely to 
the social welfare of the county. The taxpayers have provided a county 
home for those that need it. 

Various charitable organizations look after the needs of the deserving 
poor, while a good school is in reach of every child. At Leaksville- 
Spray we have an up-to-date Y. W. C. A. building for the girls and 
women of the community. It has a hospitable open door for the girls 
and women of other communities who go to live in this brisk mill 
center. Reidsville needs such a building, and both towns need Y. M. 
C. A. buildings. The Graded School in Spray has provided a gymnasium 
for the girls. 

Besides the social agencies named, we have well-equipped playgrounds 
at some of the schools and in several of the factory settlements, as well 
as public playgrounds and parks in the towns. For work of this kind, 
the various mill authorities deserve special mention. Some of them 
provide reading-rooms and games for the amusement and instruction 
of their people. In some of these mill communities, baseball is one of 
the most popular games, and it is generously promoted by the mill 
owners. The people take a lively interest in baseball and look forward 
to the season each year with great anticipation. 

In Spray, open-air motion pictures — some for amusement, others for 
instruction in public health and sanitation — have added to the equip- 
ment for recreation. These with the band furnish recreation for the 
entire community. The Graded School building in Spray is a center 
for all the social agencies of the town. Here are held community meet- 
ings of every sort. The amusements are free or inexpensive, and the 
Instruction concerns the common affairs of life — the school, the Red 



Facts About the Foils 31 

Cross, War Savings, the Liberty Loans, health, morals, and what not. 
We have heard a vast deal about making the school a center of com- 
munity life. The school in Spray is exactly such a center. 

An Educated People 

Whether or not we can consider ourselves a well-educated community 
depends upon what showing we make when compared with other coun- 
ties and communities. 

In the matter of white illiterates, ten years old and over, 52 counties 
in North Carolina make a better showing than Rockingham, and 51 
counties have smaller ratios of native white illiterate voters. In 1910 
there were 2,302 whites in the county ten years old and over who could 
not read and write, which was a littlS more than twelve people in every 
hundred. Included in this number were 848 white voters. They were 
over one-seventh of our total white voting population. For our State, 
this is not such a bad record, but we should remember that North 
Carolina is almost at the bottom of the illiteracy list. Only South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Arizona rank 
lower in total illiteracy, but these States have excessive negro, Indian, 
or Mexican populations. 

With these facts in mind, every voter in the county ought to welcome 
the opportunity to cast his ballot in the coming election for the amend- 
ment to the Constitution, which provides a six months school term for 
our rural communities. 

Church ^lembership 

Only by comparison can we realize our status as a religious people. 
The table that follows shows that only 38 of every 100 of our people 
ten years of age and over are members of any church of any name or 
faith. In this particular, 85 counties make a better showing. We are 
slightly more than one-third efficient as a church community. We can 
never boast of our religious status as long as 15,657 of our people in 
1906 were not on the rolls of any church whatsoever. It is not en- 
couraging to realize that we were 6 per cent below the State average of 
church membership and 1.1 per cent below the average for the United 
States, but such are the facts as they appear in the last published 
census of religious bodies in the United States. 

However, we have many faithful church and Sunday School leaders, 
and almost everywhere we see old church buildings improved or replaced 
by magnificent ones. It indicates the willingness of a small group of 
people to give freely of their wealth for Christian welfare. Our church 
membership ratio is too low; our active, devoted church and Sunday 
School workers are too few, and a vast work lies ahead of our church 
people in Rockingham. 



32 Roclxinghcun County : Economic and Social 

A Working People 

We need no figures to prove that we are a working people. The great 
hordes of operatives pouring into our industrial plants in the mornings 
and out again at nightfall are proof enough. 

It may be consoling to some and a warning to others to know that we 
have a large number of girls and women in our factories. There were 
over 1,100 of such workers in our mills and factories in 1915. Many of 
our business people and industrial captains will say we stand high in 
this matter, while our doctors and public health workers, perhaps, will 
call it low. No matter what opinion we may have, we must take off our 
hats to the women workers of Rockingham for the part they are playing 
in helping to support their homes and to build up our industries. And 
we shout, "Long live the factory managers who are improving living 
and sanitary conditions in the factories and factory communities, who 
are providing playgrounds for the young, night schools for the mentally 
hungry, nurses for the sick, and who, without being requested to do so, 
are increasing the wages of their workers time and again to meet the 
increased cost of living." 

A Satisfied People 

With conditions of this sort, no wonder our people are contented. As 
long as we continue to give attention to the important concerns of our 
social life, we are not likely to be bothered with the labor troubles of 
the North and West. As long as the wages of our industrial workers 
are fair and their surroundings are healthful, wholesome, and satisfying, 
our factory centers will be filled with contented breadwinners and the 
dividends of capital will be secure. However, it is well to remember 
that a landless, homeless people in our farm regions or in our factory 
centers is everywhere a fertile soil in which to sow seeds of restless 
discontent. No wage-earner can ever have wages enough to keep him 
from wandering about from place to place; but if he owns his own home 
place, a pig, some chickens, and a garden, he is satisfied to stay on in 
the same place from year to year, even if wages are higher somewhere 
else. With this said, let us consider the significance of the fact that the 
people who live in somebody else's houses and cultivate other people's 
land in Rockingham are 602 in every thousand of population, and that 
in this particular 78 counties make a better showing. We have too few 
home and farm-owners for social stability, sanity, and safety. 

A Homogeneous People 

Our whites are almost wholly an Anglo-Saxon people. Our foreign- 
born in 1910 numbered only 50 all told, in a population of nearly 37,000. 
Only 4 were Germans, 7 were Russians, while Italy, Sweden, Holland, 
and France were represented by 1 each. Our Indians, Chinese, and 



Facts Ahout the Foils 33 

Japanese were 3. The rest were born in Canada and the British Isles. 
We know nothing of the foreign-born anarchy and pro-Germanism that 
afflicts the North and West. 

HOW ROCKINGHAM RANKS 

Rank in important particulars. The rank at the left margin indicates 
the number of counties that make a better showing. 

licnlc. 

28th in land area, 1910, acres 370,560 

10th in total population, 1910 census 36,442 

11th in density of rural population, people per square mile. . . . 54.6 

68th in rural population increase from 1900-1910 5.7 

13th in total white population in 1910 25,965 

23rd in total negro population, 1910 10,474 

11th in ten-year decrease of negro population, per cent decrease, 

1900-10 6.3 

53rd in native white illiterates, ten years old and over, per cent 12.3 
Total white illiterates, 2,302. State average, 12.3%; 
United States average, 4.2%. 

52nd in native white illiterate voters, per cent 14.4 

Number, 848. State average, 14%; Unitedi States aver- 
age, 4.2%. 
22nd in marriage rate per 1,000 population, 15 years old and 

over, 1914 ". 12.2 

State average, 10.1%.; Pasquotank, 23.4%. Total mar- 
riages in 1914 pere 442. 

62nd in birth rate per 1.000 of population, 1915 32.5 

Average for the United States, 26.6 in 1913; average for 
North Carolina. 33.4 in 1915. 

42nd in death rate per 1.000 of population, 1915 12.1 

Average for the United States was 15 in 1913; average 
for North Carolina. 13.2 in 1915. 

86th in church membership, per cent 38.0 

15,657 people ten years old and over outside the church. 
Average for North Carolina, 44%. 
42nd in homicides, average annual rate per million inhabitants, 

1910-'14 75 

Average for the United States, 72. Average for North 
Carolina, 95. 

79th in tenancy, town and country, per cent 60.2 

75th in farm tenancy, per cent 54.5 

Foreig-n-Born Population in 1910 

Only 50, all told. 

Canada 8 Japan 1 

England 18 China 1 

France 1 Scotland 5 

Germany 4 Russia 7 

Holland 1 Italy 1 

Wales 1 Indian 1 

Sweden 1 



Farm Conditions and Practices 

C. H. Smith and N. A. Womack, Reidsville, N. C. 

At the close of this chapter will be found a table worked out of the 
1910 census and other authoritative sources of information. This table 
shows (1) certain fundamental facts about Rockingham set over against 
similar facts about other counties and the State at large, and (2) how 
the county stands in each particular when compared with other counties 
of the State. 

This table affords the basis for an interpretative chapter of great 
length, but there is room for only a brief, simple discussion of it in this 
bulletin. The reader is asked to study carefully this and similar tables 
closing other chapters in this bulletin. 

Kookiiighani Mainly Agricultural 

We may be surprised to know how greatly Rockingham still remains 
on the agricultural side of the balance sheet. The 1910 census shows 
that there were 31,614 people outside our six towns. The rural popula- 
tion per square mile was 54.6 per cent. The total population of the 
county in 1910 was 36,442, but it can justly be estimated now at 50,000; 
nevertheless nearly exactly two-thirds or 66 per cent of our population 
still dwell in our country regions. Rockingham is fortunate, however, 
in having some large towns that are good markets for home-raised 
products. 

The cities can increase the wealth of the county twofold by rewarding 
the farmers with fair prices and profits for home-raised food products. 
At present the farmers swarm into town on Saturdays and glut the 
markets with country produce. In consequence, they get poor prices 
for their products. Oftentimes they must give their products away or 
almost so rather than take them back home. By Wednesday of every 
week the towns suffer a sort of food famine. 

What I am trying to say is, that our farmers are confirmed in the 
habit of raising tobacco and neglecting bread and meat products because 
they can turn tobacco into instant, ready cash. Not so with their farm 
produce. The habit of producing food supplies in abundance could be 
established in them if only the towns would provide free public market 
houses, camping yards, and hitching stalls. Our larger towns need 
market arrangements, facilities, and conveniences. Reidsville offers 
unbounded advantages to the man who will put in a cold storage plant 
and handle county produce, says the Chamber of Commerce. 

If such an enterprise is not developed as a municipal undertaking, 
private capital will seize upon the opportunity here as in so many other 
lively cities. The chance once lost is never recovered by a municipality. 



Farm Conditions and Practices 35 

There are 370,560 acres of land in Rockingham, and this ample area 
affords us a chance to become one of the richest food-producing counties 
in the South. But 245,000 acres, or nearly two-thirds of the entire 
county, are idle, wilderness acres, unused at present for farm purposes. 
At $20 an acre this land represents nearly $5,000,000 of dead capital — 
or nearly so, because the wood-lot products yield a very small dividend 
upon the investment. A full half of this area ought to be turned into 
live-stock farm uses. 

As we are 66 per cent a farming people, let us see what the total farm 
wealth of Rockingham is. The 1910 crop census gives it at $6,050,152. 
The crop values produced in that year amounted to $1,834,525, and our 
animal products were only $436,494; which is to say, four-fifths of our 
farm wealth is produced by crops and only one-fifth by live-stock and 
animal products. 

We are crop farmers mainly, and crop farmers never accumulate 
wealth as live-stock farmers do. In 1910 we were 81 per cent below the 
level of even a lightly stocked farm area. Eighty-two counties made a 
better showing in this particular, and fifteen a better showing in meat 
production. We need more farm animals of every sort, and in particular 
more meat and dairy farming. We need more and better swine and 
an immense increase in pork production. Our unused farm areas are 
sufficient, and our soils and seasons are the very best for it in the 
Atlantic Piedmont region. In no other way can we ever keep our tobacco 
money at home to enrich our farmers, our merchants and bankers. The 
bulk of our crop wealth now goes to Western farmers for food, so let us 
change that and keep our money at home. How? We can raise enough 
wheat, corn, and hay to feed our families and stock and use our surplus 
land for money crops. We can open up swamp lands and drain them, 
making admirable grazing lands for cattle. The field that is too rocky 
to grow corn can be cleared and sown in grass. If manured properly 
it will bring good returns in grass and feed for our cattle. 

A great lesson we must learn is to build up our waste lands and raise 
more food and feed. The prices of food ought now to induce our farmers 
to produce food crops in abundance; not less tobacco, but more bread 
and meat. Tobacco is high at present, but nobody knows any better 
than Rockingham farmers that tobacco prices are as uncertain as the 
turn of a gambler's wheel. Our gullied areas ought to be turned into 
orchards. We have too few young orchards in one of the best orchard 
areas on the Atlantic coast. 

The world needs all the food America can produce, both now and for 
the next ten years. Nothing is any clearer than that. There is almost 
a world famine in meat animals, and it will take a decade to restore the 
balance when war is over. Every available field must be cleared, en- 
riched, and used. Any far-sighted farmer might see that after this war 



36 Rockingham Comity: Economic and Social 

the eyes of the people of stricken Europe will turn to America as never 
before. If we have fertile, well-developed farm lands we can sell them 
readily at a good price. And if we don't care to sell them, then we can 
rent them at much higher prices. 

Latter Day Derelopnieiits 

Rockingham has always had some farmers as good as the farmers of 
any county or country on the globe; farmers who have always raised 
tobacco oji a bread-and-meat basis; live-at-home farmers with cribs, 
barns, and smokehouses filled to bursting year by year with home-raised 
food and feed supplies. And they have always been prosperous and 
influential. But they have always been too few in number. We must 
have more such farmers if agriculture in Rockingham is to keep pace 
with our development in manufacture. 

In general, however, our common practices are improving. We clear 
a field and put it in tobacco the first year, sow it with wheat in the fall, 
and follow wheat with peas and clover. We terrace our lands, fill up 
our gullies, and build up our soils with sensible rotations. We are 
gradually improving our farm animals in quality as well as in numbers. 
We are headed the right way, but we are not moving fast enough. In 
1914 the bottom dropped out of tobacco prices, and as a result we pro- 
duced more tobacco than ever in 1915, but also we more than doubled 
our production of corn, wheat, and oats, hay and forage, pork and 
poultry. And we can keep up this pace year by year unless we are 
incurably afflicted with tobacco mania. And as farm labor steadily 
decreases, we must have more labor-saving, profit-producing farm 
machinery in our grain and hay fields, or we shall fall hopelessly behind. 
The Iowa farmer cultivates six acres with machine power for every 
acre we cultivate with human power, using simple farm tools. Neither 
on the farm nor anywhere else can hand power compete successfully 
with machine power. 

The Lessons of Half a Century 

During the fifty years between 1860 and 1910 the population of Rock- 
ingham has more than doubled, the increase being from 16,746 to 36,442. 
Our work animals increased from 2,533 to 4,611. Our tobacco crop in 
1860 was only 3,158,333 pounds, while in 1910 it was 8,279,194 pounds, 
or nearly three times as large. At the end of the last census period 
Rockingham ranked second in North Carolina in the production of this 
crop. 

In other words, during the last fifty years we have been mainly 
occupied in producing cash crops and getting ready money into circula- 
tion. This has been done under the pressure of hard necessity. The 
Civil War left us with land and labor in abundance, but with no oper- 



Farm Conditions and Practices 37 

ating capital. We needed money, and tobacco produces greater gross 
values per acre than any other standard farm crop on earth. A county 
without cash crops and ready money is hopelessly crippled in these 
days of modern commerce. 

Our tobacco has saved us from being a static or stagnant farm area 
like some of the tidewater counties. But also it explains why we are 
comparatively a poor farm population. Our per capita country wealth 
in farm properties in 1910 was only |191, and 86 counties made a better 
showing. It is a small figure to set against $560 in Alleghany, $994 in 
the United States, and $3,386 in Iowa. For long years we have tried 
to get rich buying farm supplies with tobacco money. We have tried it 
long enough to know that it cannot be done. In 1860 we were farming 
on a domestic level, which is to say, we lived on products with little con- 
cern about markets and profits, and we lived well. But today evei'y 
business, farming included, is inescapably related to commerce, and 
commerce is a world dominated by prices and profits. We produce the 
finest farm crop known to the world of markets. The gross values are 
great, but so is the cost of producing it; and because we have lost the 
art and the impulse of living-at-home on our own bread and meat, our 
meager net profits on tobacco slip through our fingers and leave us just 
as poor as ever. Indeed, the farmers of only thirteen counties in North 
Carolina are poorer. In 1860 our cash crops were practically nothing; 
in 1910 they were worth nearly a million dollars. But they paid less 
than half our bill for imported bread and meat supplies. 

We have failed to attain the prosperity that abounds among the 
farmers of the Middle West. They buy our tobacco and sell us food 
and feed supplies. We buy their food and feed supplies and sell them 
tobacco. They get rich and we stay poor. The point is this: If ever we 
learn to keep our tobacco money at home, by producing it on a live-at- 
home, bread-and-meat basis, we shall be, in ten years, the richest farm 
people on the continent. For instance, this year our tobacco crop has 
brought into the county three million brand new dollars. If only we 
could hold it down in Rockingham, or some reasonable share of it year 
by year, we would double our farm wealth in three years. 

In 1860 we were producing small grains, peas, and beans at the rate 
of 33 bushels per inhabitant. It was nearly enough for both folks and 
farm animals, but with no surplus to sell. In 1910 we had fallen to 
17.2 bushels per inhabitant; which is to say, we nearly trebled our 
tobacco but our grain crops had fallen behind a full half. All told, the 
food we produced per inhabitant was $48 less than we needed, and our 
total bill for imported food and feed for man and beast was $2,130,000 
in the census year. If we have not produced breadstuffs in larger abun- 
dance this year, our bill for imported bread and meat is around five 
million dollars. Naturally this imported food must be paid for. with 



38 Bocl-ingham County: Economic and Social 

tobacco money for the most part, and our tobacco money this year is 
only $3,000,000 at 30-cent prices. 

We need to increase our production of grain, hay, and forage. Both 
in 1860 and in 1910 we were producing potatoes in meager quantities — 
only 2% bushels per inhabitant, which is less than a third of what we 
need. We are probably producing pork enough for home use, but our 
meat diet is deficient in beef, mutton, poultry, and eggs. And an ill- 
balanced diet means pellagra, as the United States Public Health Service 
is now demonstrating. 

Rockingham, however, has moved up in agricultural development 
since the last census year. But in looking back at our agriculture sixty 
years, let us see and see clearly the wisdom of our forefathers in 
producing abundant home supplies on every farm. In those days a 
farmer was in disgrace if he had to buy meat and corn in the run of the 
year. Our ideal must be to retain the largest amount possible of the 
wealth we produce. This ideal can never be reached until we have a 
better balanced farming system. More domestic animals, and larger 
crops of grain, hay, and forage are what we need. 

HOW ROCKINGHAM RANKS 

Based mainly on the 1910 census. Rank indicates how many counties 
made a better showing. 
Kank. 

31st in total farm wealth $6,050,152 

91st in farm wealth increases, 1900-'10, per cent 68.7 

State increase, 1307^. 

87th in per capita country wealth $191 

Alleghany, $560; State. $322; United States, $994; Iowa, 
$3,386. Per capita taxable wealth, all property, in 
1910, was $207; white per capita taxable wealth in 
1910, $279; negro per capita taxable wealth, $28.80. 
74th in negro farm owners. Per cent of all negro farmers... 24.0 

State average, 33%. Negro farm owners in Rocking- 
ham, 180. White farm owners in Rockingham were 
51% of all white farmers; in North Carolina they 
were 66?;^. 
19th in tax value of farm land compared with census value in 

1910, per cent 34.0 

State average, 38%. 

56th in white farm mortgages, per cent 19.0 

State average for whites, 17%. 

35th in negro farm mortgages, per cent 23.0 

State average for negroes, 26% ; for both races, 18.5%. 
44th in land under cultivation; per cent of the total area. . . . 33.8 

State average, 29%. Land under cultivation, 125,119 
acres. Idle, wilderness acres, 245,441, or 66.2%' of 
the total area. Reserving 50,000 acres for wood-lot 
uses and allowing 75 acres to each family, there is 
room for 2,606 new farm families. 



Farm Conditions and Practices 39 

34th in number of farms 3,189 

Average cultivated acres per farm, 39.2. Size of culti- 
vated farms larger in 45 counties. 1.488 farms, or a 
little over one-half, are less than fifty acres in size, 
both cultivated and uncultivated land considered. 
There is room for a 100% increase in the average 
size of farms. 

58th in poultry increase 1900-'10, per cent 12.1 

65.072 fowls of all kinds in Rockingham in 1910. Rank 
in number of fowls on hand, 28th. 

36th in cattle per 1,000 acres 26 

State average, 23; United States average, 61. 

10th in cattle increase, 1900-'10, per cent 33.0 

Caldwell increased 62%. State average increased 12%. 
In 1860 Rockingham had 7,018 cattle; in 1910, 8,586. 

73rd in hogs per 1.000 acres 24 

State average, 26; United States average, 66; Iowa, 263. 

71st in swine decrease, 1900-'10, per cent 22.0 

69 counties decreased; only 28 increased. In 1860 Rock- 
ingham had 16,151 hogs; in 1910 only 7.195. 

82nd in pork production per inhabitant, pounds 54.2 

State average, 93.3. Needed, 122 lbs. 

9th in sheep gains, 1900-'10, per cent 22.0 

Total number of sheep gained, 170, worth $612. In 

1860 Rockingham had 6,283 sheep; in 1910 only 959. 

83rd in number of farm animals, per cent of a lightly stocked 

farm area 19.0 

State average, 24%; Alleghany, 43%; Iowa, 87%. 

55th in investments in farm implements, per acre $2.04 

State average, $2.10; United States, $2.52. The need is 
for larger farms and more improved farm machinery. 
56th in horse power; one work-animal for an average of, acres 27.13 

State average, 23; United States, 19.81 acres. Here, 
again, is the need for larger farms and more work- 
animals per farm. 

75th in farm tenancy, per cent 54.5 

State average, 42.3%. Decrease in farm tenancy in 
Rockingham. 1900-'10. was 3.2%. 47 counties de- 
creased in farm tenancy. White tenants in Rocking- 
ham, 1,177; negro tenants, 561. The landless, home- 
less white tenants and their families number about 
5,885 souls. 1.605 tenants are croppers; only 108 on * 
a cash or standing-rent basis. Tenants raise tobacco 
mainly and neglect food and feed crops. 

2'nd in tobacco production in 1910, pounds 8,279,194 

Per-acre production, 563 pounds; rank 43d. State aver- 
age, 625 pounds per acre. 

26th in non-food crops produced, tobacco mainly $995,385 

Tobacco and other non-food crops produced annually, 
54% of total crop wealth. Food and feed crops pro- 
duced. 467f of the total crop values. State average 
of non-food crops, 53%. 



40 RocTcingham County: Economic and Social 

20th in annual farm wealth produced $2,330,409 

This total covers both crops and animal products.. 
Every five years the farmers of Rockingham produce 
as much wealth as they have been able to accumu- 
late in the last 125 years. 

50th in crop-yielding power per acre $14.66 

State average. $20.18. Compares well with Missouri, 
$13.96; Minnesota. $13.19; North Dakota, $11.10; 
South Dakota. $10.79, in 1910. 

66th in annual production of farm wealth per person $73.70 

State average, $85; average of French farmers, $126. 

77th in food and feed production per person $36.00 

Needed, $84 per person; deficit, $48 per person; total 
deficit. $2,130,780. 
64th in food and feed crops; per cent of the total crop values 46.0 

Alleghany, 98%; State, 47%. Alleghany is the richest 
county in per capita country wealth. Rockingham 
ranks 87th in this particular. 



Home-Raised Food and the Local 
Market Problem 

T. D. Stokes, Ruffin, N. C. 

The Big Bulk Shortage 

We find in Rockingham County that there was a need for food and 
feed supplies in 1910 amounting to the sum of $3,466,211, whereas we 
produced food and feed supplies amounting to only $1,335,424, or just 
one-third as much as was necessary. In other words, the food consumed 
by man and beast in Rockingham in 1910 amounted to $2,130,787 more 
than our farms produced. This was our bill for food supplies imported 
in the census year. If our farmers have not raised more bread and meat 
this year than in 1910, our bill for the imported breadstuffs is around five 
million dollars, present prices considered. 

This shortage in detail was 1,900,000 pounds of meat, 1,186,000 pounds 
of butter, 205,000 fowls, 271.000 dozen eggs, 684.000 bushels of corn, 
6,405 bushels of wheat, and 5,141 tons of hay. This enormous shortage 
in food and feed supplies means that Rockingham County needs to wake 
up or she will lag hopelessly behind in the retention and accumulation 
of farm wealth. 

Too Little Home-Raised Supplies 

A little over one-half the total crop wealth produced in Rockingham 
year by year is produced by tobacco alone, and this ratio has been 
steadily increasing since 1860. Up to the last census year we gave 
increasing attention to tobacco and decreasing attention to grain crops, 
live-stock, hay, and forage. However, we have been doing more live- 
at-home farming since 1910. The signs point that way. 

In 1910 our corn crop was 15 per cent smaller than in 1900, our oat 
crop was 19 per cent smaller, and our wheat crop 28 per cent smaller. 
During the ten years we gained 33 per cent in number of cattle, but we 
fell back 23 per cent in the number of our hogs. In 1910 we had only 
26 cattle and 24 hogs to the 1,000 acres, and a need for 1,900,000 pounds 
more meat than we produced. 

The population in Rockingham increases rapidly. It has nearly 
quadrupled in 50 years, but our cattle are only 21 per cent more. The 
truth is that our population is increasing faster than our production 
of food — in the number of cattle, 12 times faster; and so of every other 
food. And yet last year ten Corn Club boys in Rockingham averaged 
47.2 bushels to the acre at a cost of 43 cents a bushel. At this rate the 



42 Rockingham County : Economic and Social 

grown-ups could have produced 1,702,774 bushels on the corn acreage 
of the county, or enough for home use and almost a half million bushels 
over for the market. 

Raising corn at home at this figure beats importing 684,000 bushels 
at $2 a bushel. 

The Farm Tenancy and the Crop Lien Eyil 

In 1910 more than half or 54.5 per cent of our farms were cultivated 
by tenants. And farm tenancy under the crop lien system in the South 
means more cotton and tobacco and less attention to grain, hay, and 
forage, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, poultry and dairy products, and to 
beef, mutton, and pork production. 

In Rockingham the annual consumption of these products amounts 
to about three and a half million dollars, but our farms produce only 
one and a third million dollars worth of them; and so we sent out of 
the county a king's ransom, amounting to more than two million dollars, 
for food and feed supplies that we might have raised at home, and by 
just so much did we decrease our power to accumulate wealth. 

The Penalties We Pay 

As a result, our per capita country wealth in Rockingham in the 
census year was only $191, against $322 for the State, $560 for Alle- 
ghany County, $994 for the United States, $2,665 in Illinois, and $3,386 
in Iowa. 

Although Rockingham ranks thirty-first among the counties in North 
Carolina in per acre production of crop values from year to year, our 
rank in per capita country wealth was only eighty-seventh. Alleghany 
County, which raises no cotton and almost no tobacco, heads the list. 

The county suffers a steady loss of ready cash amounting to some 
two million dollars a year. This simple fact explains why the food- 
producing farmers of the Middle West grow rich and the cotton and 
tobacco farmers of Rockingham and the South remain poor. It also 
explains in part the high cost of living in the towns and cities in the 
tobacco belt, and the high cost of living hinders industrial development 
because it calls for higher wages, and higher wages add to the labor 
cost of factory production — a fact that we can well afford to consider. 

Reldsville's Interest in the Problem 

Reidsville, like every other town and city, is interested in the local 
market problem, because, in the first place, it concerns the increasing 
high cost of living. The whole world faces this primary problem today, 
because once more in the round of history population presses upon the 
food supply. The cost of foodstuffs is higher everywhere while the pur- 
chasing power of the dollar is less. Today it is barely half of what it 



Home-Baised Food and the Local Market Problem 43 

was four years ago; that is to say, fifty cents then would buy as much 
food as a dollar will buy today. Highej costs of living compel higher 
wages, as Adam Smith saw a century or so ago. Higher wages mean 
an increase in the labor cost of production. When production costs 
increase, dividends on capital dwindle or disappear. Nobody has a 
more direct relationship to the problem of local markets for home-raised 
food supplies than our mill owners, and nobody ought to have a livelier 
interest in it. 

Imported Breadstuffs and Inflated Bills 

If Reidsville and Rockingham must depend upon the far-away pro- 
ducers of food and feed supplies to the extent of two million, one hun- 
dred and thirty thousand a year, the overhead charges of transportation 
and handling by a swarming multitude of middlemen will of course add 
enormously to the cost of farm and pantry supplies. 

Rooking'hani's Crop-Producing Power 

Our farmers can produce all the standard crops and all the animal 
products needed for consumption in Rockingham County. Our soils are 
as good as any to be found in the State and are easy to make fertile. 
Our Corn Club boys averaged 48 bushels to the acre in 1917, and the 
county could easily produce corn enough and to spare. We have in the 
past depended upon the West for flour when we can raise wheat at 
home and do it as cheaply as any county in this part of the State. Our 
annual flour bill has been an enormous drain on our ready cash. This 
situation is produced in the main by tobacco farming on a farm-tenancy, 
supply-merchant, crop-lien basis. And it is a farm system that must 
be abandoned if conditions are to be improved. 

Poor Market Facilities 

We have ready cash markets for tobacco, but not for home-raised 
food and feed supplies. The farmer must peddle his vegetables, fruits, 
butter and eggs, meat and poultry, from door to door or sell them to a 
merchant at shamefully low prices. Often when he cannot sell to any 
one he will leave his perishable products with the merchant to dispose 
of at any price obtainable, as it would be a complete loss to take them 
back home. The producers and consumers are not organized in ways 
advantageous to both. They are as far apart as though they lived on 
different planets. The producers and consumers of Rockingham suffer 
from the Iron Law of Trade as do any other people. This law is: keep 
producers and consumers as far apart as possible, pass economic goods 
from the one to the other through as many hands as possible, charge 
consumers as much as possible and pay producers as little as possible. 
As long as this law is in full operation in Rockingham everybody will 



44 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

suffer. It can be broken down only by union and oobpei'ation. Where 
there is a disunion and collision both producers and consumers are 
punished. The producer gets too little for his products, the consumer 
gets too little for his money, while the middlemen get the lion's share 
of the wealth the farmers produce. 

Doubling Our Farm Wealth 

But, leaving town consumers out of the question, our farmers can and 
ought to raise the supplies that they themselves need from year to year 
to feed their own families and farm animals. If only the farmers could 
or would stop spending six hundred thousand dollars a year for these 
things, the farm wealth of Rockingham would be doubled in the next 
few years. That is to say, six hundred thousand dollars in the census 
year is what the farmers themselves spent for imported bread and 
meat. The same kind of farmers will this year send out of the county 
twelve hundred thousand dollars. 

Our farmers will always need to raise tobacco, but while they do it 
they must be wise enough to have their pantries, barns, and smokehouses 
filled with their own home-raised supplies. 

The Acid Test of Success 

The local market problem created by the demand for breadstuffs at 
high prices and the failure of near-by farmers to supply the demand is 
a perplexing problem in every city center in America. 

The law of markets is greed for gain. It is the tooth-and-claw struggle 
for prices and profits. The primary law of human nature organizes a 
world-wide market for cotton and tobacco, and at the same time and for 
the same reason it denies to the consumers and producers of bread- 
stuffs, living side by side in the same county, an opportunity for direct 
dealings with mutual advantage. 

The Solution of the Problem 

Greed safely counts upon the dull unconcern of both consumers and 
producers. But at last city consumers awake to the fact that the 
cost of living is a great national problem. Farmers discover that the 
prices of food products to consumers have risen enormously but that 
their own farm profits are no more or little more than they were fifteen 
years ago. The simple fact is that consumers and producers are too 
far apart and the cost of marketing is too great. 

How great the cost of marketing is can be shown from figures com- 
piled by the Citrus Fruit Growers Association of California. These 
growers have done everything in their power to reduce the middlemen 
to a minimum and to pass the fruit from producers to consumers with 



Home-Raised Food and the Local Mark-et Problem 45 

as little cost as possible. Yet. even with all their wonderful organiza- 
tion and business skill, they found that the part of the consumer's 
dollar that got back to the producer was only twenty-eight cents, while 
the middlemen — the packers and pickers, transporters and merchants — - 
got seventy-two cents of it. The hard fact about marketing is that it 
costs more to get agricultural products from original producers to final 
consumers than it costs to produce them on the farm. This is especially 
true of fruits and vegetables. 

The problem is to get producers and consumers together; the prin- 
ciple of action lies in cooperation, and success is achieved when farmers 
get more for their products and consumers get more for their money. 
If the farmers do not get more, and if at the same time the consumers 
do not pay less, then the problem is not solved, no matter how elaborate 
the attempt or expensive the market house. 

Cooperation Necessary 

Producers alone cannot solve the market problem. Success calls for 
the direct cooperation of consumers; and in big-sale marketing it in- 
variably calls for and depends upon the credit accommodation of the 
banks. If consumers are unconcerned and unorganized, or if banks 
and transportation companies are neglectful or hostile, then the farmer's 
chance of success is reduced to zero. Success lies in collusion, not in 
collision; in cooperaiton, not in contest. 

Texas Leads 

Texas has taken a long step forward in solving her local market 
problems; and one of the many things she does with the help of her 
boards of trade is to maintain free telephone market information ex- 
changes in charge of officials whose business it is to give reliable disin- 
terested market news to farmers and city dwellers, and to bring pro- 
ducers and consumers together in direct dealings. 

At present, in North Carolina and in Rockingham County neither the 
consumers nor producers know definitely the wants, tastes, and standards 
of the other. 

The City End of the Problem 

"Success in the undertaking calls, first of all, for the marketing habit 
on the part of housewives, and then for well managed, centrally located 
markets with cold storage chambers for perishable products; for credit 
accommodations on stored products when needed; for ample market 
space for free, open-air trading; for convenient hitching grounds, camp- 
ing sheds, and feeding stalls; for indications of city hospitality — rest- 
rooms with lavatory and toilet conveniences, chairs, tables, books, maga- 
zines, and newspapers; for a free telephone market exchange in the 



46 Rocl'ingham County: Economic and Social 

city hall or the chamber of commerce, operated by a competent official 
whose business it is to acquaint consumers with the sources of the 
neighborhood supply, and to advise the farmers about the wants, 
standards, and tastes of city consumers; and finally, for a cooperative 
city delivery service." "These," says Professor Branson, "are some of 
the plans and projects that I find in various alert city centers." 

What the Banks Can Do 

Texas banks are refusing loans to supply-merchants who do a crop- 
lien business protected by cotton acreage alone. They have a half-and- 
half system. They stipulate a minimum acreage which must be devoted 
to food production, and farmers are required to raise specified amounts 
of food and feed on this acreage. They are doing this to force the 
supply-merchants to force the farmers to raise a sufficiency of meat 
and food on every farm. It is sound sense and safe business policy, 
they say. to keep in Texas the 298 million dollars that has been leaving 
the State every year heretofore to pay bills for imported food products. 

This policy insures a food-producing farm civilization, and this means 
prosperity. It also means bigger, safer, better business for supply- 
merchants and bankers. 

This same system could be put to work in this State, especially in our 
cotton and tobacco counties, where conditions are similar to those in 
Texas. 

We have proved to the world if not to ourselves that we cannot accumu- 
late country wealth under our present cash-crop, supply-merchant, crop- 
lien, time-price system. We stay poor buying farm supplies with 
tobacco money, while the Western farmers get rich buying our tobacco 
and selling us bread and meat. The bankers of a community can do 
more in a single year to place tobacco culture on a live-at-home basis 
than the farm demonstrator can do in a lifetime, and they can do it 
almost by lifting or lowering their eyebrows. All they need to do is to 
refuse to discount the supply-merchant's crop liens when based on 
tobacco acreage alone. It is the Texas way, and it works in Texas. 

The Farmer's End of the Problem 

On the other hand, our farmers must not only produce food and feed 
sufficient for farm consumption, but this year they need to produce three 
and a quarter million dollars worth more for the city consumers In 
Rockingham County alone. They must know more about market de- 
mands. They must not all dump their food products on a small market 
at one time. What they offer in competition with the big wide world 
must taste as good and look as attractive as imported food products. 
They must become expert in handling, grading, picking, and crating. 
They must produce meat, grain, and hay, butter, and eggs in steady 



Home-Raised Food and the Local Market Problem 47 

reliable sufficiencies, and stand ready to supply market demands just 
as Western markets do upon sudden notice. 

The blame for the present sad and sorry state of affairs in Rocking- 
ham must be laid upon the farmers as well as upon the consumers and 
bankers. But it is this year a four and a half million-dollar proposition 
in Rockingham, and it is worth solving. 

HOME-RAISED FOODS 

Facts mainly from the 1910 census. Rank indicates the number of 
counties that make a better showing. 

Ra7ik. 

27th in corn production, total crop, bushels 445,223 

Robeson ranked first, with 1,142,000 bushels. Ten 
years decrease in corn production, 1900-'10, was 82,- 
487 bushels, or 15 per cent. Rockingham ranked 
70th in this particular. In 1860 Rockingham pro- 
duced 364.790 bushels. 

79th in corn production per person, bushels 12.83 

Needed per inhabitant per year, 31 bushels; deficit per 
inhabitant, 19 bushels. State average, 15 bushels per 
person. 

16th in wheat produced per person, bushels 3.83 

Needed, 4 bushels per person; deficit per person, .17 
bushels; total deficit, 6,401 bushels. Only 15 counties 
in 1910 raised wheat surpluses. Ten-year increase in 
wheat production, 1900-'10, was 28 per cent. In 1860 
Rockingham produced 97,512 bushels, in 1910 139.363 
bushels. 

35th in oats production, total crop, bushels 35,282 

The oats raised amounted to 1.3 pints per work animal 
per day; rank 35th. Ten-year decrease in oats pro- 
duction, 1900-'10, was 19 per cent; rank in this par- 
ticular, 64th. In 1860 Rockingham produced 91,349 
bushels of oats. 

24th in hay and forage production, total crop, tons 4,586 

Ten-year increase, 1900-'10, was 18 per cent; rank 72'nd. 
The hay and forage production amounted to 5.4 
pounds per work-animal per day; needed, 10 pounds 
per work-animal. 

48th in per cent of farmers buying feed 32 

1,514 farms, or nearly one-third of them all, bought 
feed, averaging $30.20 per farm. 

64th in beef production per person, pounds 18 

State average, 33.8 pounds. 

82nd in pork production per person, pounds 54.2 

State average, 93 pounds. State average of hogs sold 
and slaughtered, .47 of a hog. United States aver- 
age, 1.57 hogs; Iowa. 2.72 hogs per person. Needed 
for farm consumption, 122 pounds per inhabitant. 



48 Bockinghani County: Economic and Social 

32nd in poultry production per person, fowls 7.48 

Needed, 13 fowls per person per year; deficit, 5.52 fowls 
per person; total deficit, 201,038 fowls. 
35th in increase of farm sales of dairy products, per cent. . . . 229 

Total sales in 1910 were $21,730. State increase was 
146 per cent. Rockingham produced 15 pounds of 
butter per person; rank 40th. The average amount 
needed was 48 pounds per person per year; the per 
capita deficit was 33 pounds; total deficit, 1,186,000 
pounds. 
83rd in farm animals, per cent of a lightly stocked farm area. 19 

Camden and Hyde first with 47 per cent; Cumberland 
last with 14 per cent; State average, 24 per cent. 

42nd in livestock products, per person $16.00 

Alleghany, $65; State average, $17. Per capita crop 
production in Rockingham was $50; total farm 
wealth produced was $66 per person; average of 
French farmers was $126 per person. 



THE LOCAL MARKET PROBLEM 

1. Food axd Feed: 

Needed— 36,442 people @ $84.00 $3,061,128 

5,327 work animals @ $39.39 209.831 

5.378 dairy cows @ $18.55 99,742 

4.433 other cattle @ 8.09 35,862 

8,651 swine @ $6.69 57,876 

956 sheep @ $1.79 1,771 

Total food andi feed needed $3,466,211 

2. Prodvced: 

Food and feed crops $ 839,540 

Dairy products 131.558 

Poultry products 131,367 

Honey and wax 5,163 

Wool and mohair 477 

Animtils sold and slaughtered 227,319 

Total food and feed produced 1,335.424 

Shortage in home-raised food and feed supplies $2,130,787 

3. Distribution of Food and Feed Shoktage: Pounds. 

(1) Meat needed for 36,442 people @ 152 pounds 5,539,184 

produced 904 calves @ 150 lbs 135,450 

1,726 cattle @ 300 lbs 517,800 

272.708 poultry @ 4 lbs 1,090.832 

9,885 hogs @ 190 lbs 1,888.150 

184 sheep and goats @ 50 lbs.. 9,200 

Total home-produced meat 3,641,432 

Deficit 1,897,752 

Poimds. 

(2) Butter needed for 36,442 people @ 48 pounds 1,749,216 

produced 562,729 

deficit 1,186,487 



Home-Raised Food and the Local Marhet Prohlem 49 

Fowls. 

(3) Fowls needed for 36,442 people @ 13 473,746 

produced 272,708 

deficit 205,038 

Dozen. 

(4) Eggs needed for 36,442 people @ 17 dozen 619,514 

produced 348,394 

deficit 271,120 

Bushels. 

(5) Corn needed for 36,442 people @ 31 bushels 1,129,702 

produced 445,223 

deficit 684,479 

Bjishels. 

(6) Wheat needed for 36,442 people @ 4 bushels 145,768 

produced 139,363 

deficit 6,405 

Tons. 

(7) Hay and forage needed for 5,327 work animals 9,721 

produced 4,580 

deficit 5,141 



Note. — The figures for average annual consumption are the figures 
given out by the Federal Agricultural Department; also the cost prices, 
which refer to 1910. The cost prices in 1918 are in most instances 
doubled, in many instances they are trebled since 1910. 



Agricultural Production: Non-Food Crops 

T. D. Storks, Ruffin, N. C. 

By non-food crops the census means crops that do not serve as food 
for man or beast. The main crop of this sort in Rockingham is tobacco. 
Tobacco is the most important single source of revenue to the Rock- 
ingham farmer, and its importance is increasing year by year. 

The value of the tobacco produced in Rockingham in 1910 was 54 per 
cent of the total crop w^ealth produced in the county in that year. Only 
34 counties produced larger ratios of non-food crops; which is to say, 
only 65 counties produced smaller ratios of food crops — wheat, corn, 
hay forage, and the like. 

Tobacco 

Tobacco production has been steadily increasing in Rockingham since 
the War Between the States. During this period tobacco culture has 
steadily moved southeastwardly across the cotton belt into Wilson, 
Pitt, Greene, and Lenoir, and along the cotton belt into Sampson and 
Robeson. The main tobacco producing counties of this State were once 
the counties bordering on the Virginia line from Surry eastward to 
Warren. Tobacco still has a large place in the production of farm wealth 
in Rockingham and other counties in this portion of the State. Rock- 
ingham once led the State in tobacco production. In 1910 Pitt was in 
the lead with Rockingham second. 

In 1860 we produced 3,158,333 pounds. In 1879 we produced 4,341,259 
pounds, and in 1909 we produced 8,279,194 pounds. In thirty years we 
nearly doubled our production of tobacco, you see. 

Keeping Home-Made Wealth at Home 

There can be no doubt that the farmers of Rockingham have profited 
by raising tobacco. This non-food crop serves as an important source 
of cash income. But it is folly for a farmer to raise tobacco to the 
neglect of food and feed crops. Tobacco rewards the farmer when it is 
produced on a bread-and-meat basis, and not otherwise. We have tried 
for a half century to get rich buying farm supplies with tobacco money. 
Man for man, the farmers of 86 other counties are richer in farm 
properties. 

We do not urge or advocate any neglect of tobacco, but we do urge the 
wisdom of greater attention to food and feed crops and to live-stock. As 
a policy of sensible self-defense if not profits, our farmers today will do 
well to employ their idle hours and idle acres in the production of food 
and feed supplies, instead of importing these over a thousand miles of 



Agricultural Production: Non-Food Crops 51 

railway and through the hands of countless middlemen, each of whom 
must add to the consumer's bill because each must have his profit. It 
would be foolish to neglect the present money crop; but it is also foolish 
to neglect bread-and-meat crops and to spend practically all of our 
tobacco money year by year, buying food and feed to raise tobacco. It 
is a vicious circle, and going the round of it year in and year out keeps 
our farmers poor. 

The man that raises food and feed along with his tobacco is invariably 
in a better financial condition than his neighbor who raises tobacco 
and buys food and feed. The reason this is so is evident. Experiments 
made by the Government have proved that hay, forage, corn, pork, and 
beef can be produced in the South today more cheaply than in the West. 
If the farmer raises his own staple supplies he saves the middleman's 
profit and increases the size of his pocketbook and bank account. And 
clearly he is wise to do so when he can produce these supplies for less 
money than they cost him in the stores. 

There was a time just after the war when it paid him to buy from the 
West because they farmed extensively with labor-saving machinery and 
produced foodstuffs more cheaply than we could. But that day has 
long since passed, apparently never to return. We can now produce 
bread and meat more cheaply than the Western farmers can. We must 
raise tobacco, but also we must use the extra hours and the idle acres 
for the purpose of producing farm supplies at home. It is a sure way 
to produce fat pocketbooks. The farmer that cannot or will not convert 
into gold the opportunity now offered by the war-time prices of food 
supplies is missing the greatest chance he has ever had in the South in 
her whole history. 

How Don Seitz Sees It 

Don Seitz, the business manager of the New York World, and the 
best-known man of his profession in the country, gave the editors of 
North Carolina at their institute here at the University a year ago some 
sound advice along this line. He said once he had an editor to ask 
him why his town did not grow and prosper as the other towns did. 
Mr. Seitz said he found out from a banker that this man's town sent out 
of its territory $150,000 a year for food and feed supplies bought with 
money made from cash sales of non-food products. He told the editors 
the trouble and the editors told the people. Matters were adjusted, food 
and feed were raised at home, and the town began to prosper by leaps 
and bounds. Why? Because the |150,000 remained at home to enrich 
the community in which it was made, as before it had been going to 
enrich other places that had produced what could be produced at home. 

It is impracticable or even impossible for any farmer or community 
to be wholly self-supporting, but it should be self-supporting in so far as 



52 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

economic advantage favors it. Mr. Don Seitz, of the New York World, 
says that people argue to him that railroads won't prosper if the people 
live at home. 

"Well," says he, "what interest have you in the railroads or what 
interest have they in you except in so far as they can enrich their 
coffers at your expense? We have too long supported railroads at our 
loss, and in many ways they are becoming an unnecessary nuisance." 
If the advice of Mr. Seitz and a vast number of economists is followed, 
Rockingham as well as the South will make more rapid progress in the 
future than in the past. 

Our 1918 motto ought to be: "Food, feed, and fertility first; and then 
all the tobacco we have time to raise." 



' Our Public School Rank and Progress 

E. F, Duncan, Mayodan, N. C. 

My endeavor in this chapter is to show, briefly and clearly, (1) how 
Rockingham compares with the rest of the State in certain essential 
particulars of public education, and (2) how she compares with herself 
in a seven-year period, frorii 1908-09 to 1915-16, and what gains she has 
made during this time in her public schools. I am centering attention 
on our rural school status and progress, because our brisk and enter- 
prising little cities, in Rockingham as in every other county of the State, 
are forging ahead in school buildings, local school tax levies, length of 
school terms, and in general excellence of school facilities. Our country 
communities are doing well, as we shall show in detail, but they are lag- 
ging behind our towns in school advantages. 

For instance, 47 of our white country, schools are one-room, one- 
teacher schools, and the average length of the county school term is 
only 113 days, or 67 days less than the school term in Reidsville. Every 
other detail shows the disadvantages of our country school children. 
Their brains and fingers are just as nimble and capable as those of our 
town children, and they ought to have just as good a chance. A square 
deal and a fair chance for the country children of Rockingham is what 
I have uppermost in mind. 

This discussion is based on tables that can be found as usual at the 
end of the chapter. 

How We Eank 

In 1910, only 30 counties stood ahead of us in total actual farm wealth, 
while in total taxable wealth in 1916 only 18 counties made a better 
showing; which means that Rockingham is among the 20 richest coun- 
ties in North Carolina. 

On the whole, our rank in school property is on a level with our rank 
in wealth. Just as we stood 19th in total taxables in 1916, so we stood 
19th in total school property. In the matter of country school property 
alone we moved up to the eleventh place, which is to say, only 10 other 
counties had a larger total investment in country school property in 
1916 than Rockingham had. 

That looks good; but it might easily be better. For instance, our per 
capita investment in school property, both town and country, was only 
$4.16, and forty-two other counties made a better showing, while our 
wealth in automobiles was $15.56 per inhabitant or nearly four times 
as much. Only twenty-seven counties in the State are richer than Rock- 
ingham in motor-car wealth. 



54 Rochingliain County : Economic and Social 

Moreover, the cost of running our public schools averaged only $2.58 
per inhabitant in 1915-16, in which particular thirty-five counties made 
a better showing. The per capita cost of running our automobiles the 
same year was $4.74. Which means that it costs us nearly twice as 
much to run our automobiles as it does to run our schools. 

I say we might easily have better country schools, because in 1916 
our combined tax rate for all purposes, State and county, was only 98 
cents on the hundred dollars worth of taxable property. Forty-eight 
counties carried a heavier tax burden. There is ample room in Rock- 
ingham for a 30-cent county-wide local tax levy for school support — 
such a levy as Beaufort and Wilson counties have just voted. Even 
then there would be sixteen counties with heavier tax levies for all 
purposes. Indeed, a 30-cent school tax levy would give Rockingham 
almost exactly the rank in tax burdens that she holds at present in 
total taxable wealth. 

A county that spends nearly twice as much per inhabitant to run its 
motor cars as ft does to run its schools is rich enough to double its 
school support with comparative ease. 

The need for an immense increase in school support lies (1) in the 
white illiteracy that affects our county, and (2) in the steady cityward 
drift of our country people and the need of good country schools as an 
effective country-life defense. 

1. Nearly an eighth of all our whites 10 years old and over are 
afflicted with sheer illiteracy, and 52 counties made a better showing in 
1910; while a full seventh of our white males of voting age could neither 
write their names nor read their ballots, and 57 counties made a better 
showing. These are white illiterates, mind you; our own color, kith, 
kin, and kind. The near-illiterates — the people who can read and don't 
read, who can think and don't think — are probably a much larger com- 
pany of souls in Rockingham. Together, our illiterate and semi-illiter- 
ate whites are a dead weight in our developing democracy. They cripple 
and retard every forward movement. They can always be hoodwinked 
by designing political tricksters and massed against any measure of 
reform or prosperity or patriotism — against tax reforms, or local school 
taxes, or the war, or Liberty Bonds, the Red Cross, the Army Y. M. C. A., 
or better church and Sunday school support — against any worthy cause 
whatsoever. 

We must sponge the shame of illiteracy off the map of Rockingham, 
and we must put the fire and fervor of religious zeal into the task. And 
it is a task for preachers and Sunday school teachers as well as day- 
school teachers and school officials. The churches of Rockingham need 
more members and the country needs more home-owning farmers; but 
illiteracy multiplies the number of landless, homeless people, while 
illiteracy and tenancy together reduce church membership to a mini- 
mum. A little more than half or 54 per cent of all our farmers are crop- 



Our Puhlic School Rank and Progress 55 

pers and tenants, and nearly two-thirds or 62 per cent of all our people 
ten years old and over are members of no church of any name, sect, or 
sort in Rockingham. Seventy-four counties make a better show^ing in 
ownership farming and eighty-five a better showing in church mem- 
bership. 

So much to indicate the importance of our illiteracy problem. The 
situation calls for better schools, for better compulsory attendance laws, 
or for a more courageous enforcement of the laws we already have. 

2. In the second place, the best country-life defense that a county 
can have is the best country schools it can afford to support, and Rock- 
ingham needs this defense, for several reasons. Our country people are 
moving out of our countryside in steadily increasing numbers year by 
year. Between 1900 and 1910 almost exactly a tenth of our negroes dis- 
appeared. Since the war they have gone out of the country even more 
rapidly into the mines, railway gangs, munition plants, and cities of the 
North. During this period our rural population increase was very 
small — only 5.7 per cent — but since 1910 the population of our mill and 
factory towns has grown from 7,230 to 20,000 or more. This increase of 
our town population has come almost entirely from the surrounding 
country regions, and mainly it has consisted of alert-minded tenants and 
their families, and less often of small home-owning farmers. 

The cityward drift of country people means decreasing farm labor and 
more idle, wilderness acres. It tends toward stagnation in land values 
and farm rentals. Every one of these drifts and tendencies threatens 
the owners of country property in Rockingham, and the best investment 
our landlords can make is in country schools — in the very best possible 
country schools. Nothing will hold tenants in the country and keep 
them satisfied to remain on year after year in the same community like 
good schools. Nothing else is so inviting to home-seekers with money 
to invest in country property, or so certainly adds value to the market 
price of farm lands. 

The simple fact is that manufacture is outstripping agriculture in 
Rockingham. Our industries are developing so rapidly that our country- 
civilization is lagging behind and in remote corners of the county is 
dropping into decay. The safety of a county and a country alike depends 
upon the sane balancing of Its rural and its urban life. It is a great 
problem for intelligent people of Rockingham to keep clearly in mind — 
the farmers, the merchants, the bankers, and the manufacturers. Pros- 
perous country regions means prosperous towns, and the time has come 
when no city can safely grow fat in a lean countryside. 

Maryelous Seyen-Year Gains 

The gains made by our rural schools during the seven years between 
1908-09 and 1915-16, the date of the last published report of the State 



56 Eockinghajn County: Economic and Social 

School Superintendent, were marvelous. We say this advisedly. Aside 
from New Hanover. Wake, and Durham, all of which are big-city coun- 
ties, no other county in the State can show a more wonderful list of 
country school gains than Rockingham. The table at the end of this 
chapter tells the story in full, and it is worth studying in detail. 

During this period we nearly trebled the values of our rural school 
property. We multiplied our rural school fund by nearly two and a 
half. We trebled the amount spent on teaching and supervision, and 
a little more than doubled the average annual salaries of our white 
country .teachers. At the beginning of the period under discussion we 
had no rural school districts that levied local school taxes; at the end 
of it we had eighteen districts that were willing to tax themselves 
$13,451 for the sake of better schools for their children. 

Not only did we create better school facilities but we greatly bettered 
the quality of our teaching during this seven-year period. Here are 
some of the significant gains: (1) The white schools with old-fashioned 
benches or home-made desks entirely disappeared. Every white school- 
house was equipped with modern patent desks— a thing that can be 
said of only fourteen other counties of the State, (2) our rural white 
teachers increased from 95 to 161, (3) our consolidated schools, schools 
with two or more teachers, increased from 21 to 36. (4) our rural white 
teachers with four years of experience or more increased from 32 to 
74. and (5) those with college diplomas increased from 6 to 35. 

These gains are extremely significant, and they ought to be reflected 
in the greater power of our schools to attract country children and 
hold them in school. And this is exactly what has happened. Our white 
country population has stood still or decreased in number since 1910, 
but the rural school population increased 5 per cent, the number of 
country children enrolled increased 10 per cent, and the average of daily 
attendance increased 40 per cent. These are real increases, and every 
school man knows how significant they are. No other county in the 
State can show such gains in school enrollment and attendance. Indeed 
many counties show increasing school costs on the one hand and de- 
creasing attendance on the other, but not so in Rockingham 

Nevertheless, there is work that is still to be done that urgently 
needs doing in our country regions; manifestly so when 2.373 white 
children of school age in the country were not in school in 1915-16 for 
so much as a single day— whose names were never once on the roll 
books of the teachers. 

We need moonlight schools and a heroic campaign in behalf of the 
children in Rockingham who are rapidly passing beyond the daylight 
schools of the State into adult illiteracy with all its disabling conse- 
quences. 

We need compulsory school attendance laws courageously enforced- 
we need to reach and serve and save the people who retard the develop- 



Our Public School Rani: and Progress 57 

ment of Rockingham; and, mind you, they are at present a full eighth 
of our entire population. 

We need at least three well managed Farm-Life Schools properly 
located. Guilford County has three and we need no less. We need a 
rural school supervisor as an efficient right arm for our county school 
superintendent. Sixteen counties have such additional rural school 
helpers, and Rockingham needs to move up into this group of progres- 
sive counties. 

The county commencement has become an important event in Rock- 
ingham school life, and the people look forward to it with keen antici- 
pation. This commencement has been held in many other counties as 
well as our own for several years, and it has rapidly grown in signifi- 
cance and value. It is an occasion on which all of the schools of the 
county have a chance to get together, and to have a day of competitive 
tests, athletics, and social enjoyment. Each year it should be made 
bigger and better than ever before. 

BANK OF ROCKINGHAM IN SCHOOL MATTERS 

10th in total population, 1910 census 36,442 

11th in rural population per square mile, 1910 54.6 

13th in total white population 25,965 

23rd in total negro population 10,474 

11th in negro population decrease, 1900-'10, per cent 6.3 

1,143 negroes left the county between 1900 and 1910. 
Many more have gone since that date. 
53rd in native white illiterates, 10 years old and over, 1910, 

per cent 12.3 

Number of such illiterates, 2,302. State average, 
12.3%; United States average, 3%. 
52nd in native white illiterate voters, per cent 14.4 

Number of such voters, 848, or one-seventh of them 
all. State average, 14%; United States average, 
4.2%. 

31st in total farm wealth, 1910 census $6,050,152 

19th in total taxable wealth. 1916 $13,371,387 

49th in tax levy per $100, State and county, 1916 $.98 

Forty-eight counties had a higher rate. 
34th in local school tax fund per $1,000 of taxable property, 

1915-'16 rate $7.11 

19th in total school property, town and county, 1916 $161,405 

We stood 19th both in taxable wealth and in total 
school property. 
11th in total country school property, 1916 $123,205 

Only 10 counties had more country school property. 
43rd in per capita investment in school property, town and 

county, 1915-'16 $4.16 

28th in per capita investment in automobiles, 1915-'16 $15.56 

Nearly four times as much money in motor cars as in 
schools. 



58 



Rochingham Connty: Economic and Social 



36th in per capita school expenditures, town and county, 

1915-'16 $2.58 

The money spent to keep our automobiles running in 

1915-'16 was $4.74 per inhabitant, or nearly twice as 

much as we spent per inhabitant to keep our schools 

running. 

36th in average annual salaries paid white teachers, town 

. and country, 1915-'16 $289.00 

For rural white teachers it was only $274.45. 
48th in rural white schools having two or more teachers, 

1915-'16, per cent 43 

47 one-room, one-teacher schools are still to be found 
in our white country communities. Here is need 
for further consolidation. Forty-seven counties 
stood ahead of us in this particular. 



SEVEN-YEAR GAINS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 



1908-'09 



Total rural school property $44,673 

Total rural school fund $29,382 

Rural districts tax fund Nothing 

Number of rural school tax districts 

Spent on teaching and supervision $17,534 

Spent on new buildings, rural $7,019 

New schoolhouses, both races 5 

Spent on administration $844 

Total rural school population 10,483 

Total rural enrollment 6,329 

Per cent of rural enrollment 60.3 

Average rural daily attendance 3,896 

Per cent attendance 62 

Average annual salaries (white) $134.49 

Number having two or more teachers. ... 21 

Per cent with two or more teachers, white 31 

Total number of rural white teachers.... 95 

Number with four years of experience. ... 32 

Number with college diplomas 6 

Number of rural schoolhouses (white) ... 73 

Number with patent desks 67 

Number schoolhouses with home-made 

desks 6 

Total number of white districts 70 

Log schoolhouses 1 





Per Ct. 


J9i-)-'u; 


Inc. 


$123,205 


176 


$70,955 


141 


$13,451 




18 




$52,372 


200 


$8,100 


15 


9 


80 


$1,597 


88 


10,964 


5 


6,943 


10 


63.3 


3 


5,472 


40 


79 


17 


$274.45 


104 


36 


71 


43 


12 


161 


69 


74 


131 


35 


463 


81 


11 


81 


21 







68 


3* 


1 





Note. — * means decrease. 



Where We Lead 

T. D. Stokes, Ruffin, N. C. 

Rockingham has a great many things to be proud of. Besides being 
one of the oldest counties in the State, it has become in recent years one 
of the most prosperous industrial areas of North Carolina. It has been 
bountifully blessed by nature with good soils in great variety and with 
a good climate that distinctly favors live-stock farming. However, in 
1910, our per capita wealth in farm properties was only $191 against 
$322, the average for the State, against |560 in Alleghany and $992, the 
average for the United States. 

Reidsville and Spray 

Reidsville, largely because of its wealth and age, is a city of wide, 
shaded streets and beautiful homes, costing from five to fifty thousand 
dollars apiece. The church buildings are of modern construction, the 
congregations large, and the music is under the direction of trained 
choir leaders. The pastors are men of civic as well as religious leader- 
ship. Reidsville every year maintains a Chautauqua week and sub- 
scribes funds liberally to secure many of the most noted lecturers and 
entertainers on the lyceum circuits. The postofRce building is one of 
the three or four best in North Carolina. Women's libraries, social and 
civic clubs wield tremendous infiuence in the life of the city. The high 
school building would be a credit to any city twice the size of Reidsville. 

The annual output of Reidsville tobacco factories in 1914 amounted 
to 9,000,000 pounds of plug and 500,000 pounds of smoking tobacco, 
having a value of $7,500,000. Since the war the output has been prac- 
tically doubled. Hundreds of people find employment inside the walls 
of these massive buildings. In every small territory, in every State in 
the Union are traveling men pushing the output of Reidsville's tobacco 
factories, and so great is the popularity of their goods that these plants 
are running on an average of $2,000,000 behind orders. The chewers 
and smokers have contributed multiplied millions of dollars to the 
tobacco growers of Rockingham County. Practically every large manu- 
facturing concern in this country maintains buyers in the Reidsville 
markets. 

Reidsville, therefore, is a busy tobacco factory center. Her future 
will largely depend upon the development of the marvelous agricultural 
resources of her trade territory. Our rolling hillsides and green 
meadows are becoming more famous for their grasses and live-stock 
than tobacco has ever made them. 



60 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

Leaksville-Spray 

In the north central part of Rockingham County is located Spray, 
one of the most active and prosperous little cities of the northern tier 
of counties. It has a population of over 8,000 and is growing steadily. 
It has thirteen important cotton mills and offers exceptional oppor- 
tunities for more. 

Splendid schools and churches are provided for all the people. A 
handsome Y. M. C. A. building has recently been erected at a cost of 
more than $30,000. The main public school building recently com- 
pleted cost $35,000 and is considered one of the best in this section of 
the country. 

Leaksville, adjoining Spray, is a growing community, and contributes 
largely to the activity and prosperity of the north end of the county. 

The people of Spray take great pride in the living conditions of the 
town. Every means for the preservation of health and for the general 
elevation of the citizens of all classes is provided. Good roads connect 
Spray with the surrounding country and other towns of the section. 

Our Schools 

During the year 1914 nine new schoolhouses were built in Rockingham 
County and four were entirely renovated. These buildings were all 
erected in country districts except the new building in Spray. All 
these buildings have been erected in accordance with modern plans, 
with ample and attractive playgrounds. There are eighty-five white 
schools and forty colored schools in the county. There are four State 
high schools that offer free tuition to all boys and girls who have com- 
pleted the elementary school. High school branches are also taught 
in four city schools and in several of the consolidated rural schools 
in the special-tax districts. 

Although we are behind in food production we are ahead in many 
other particulars. A shining example to the other counties of the State 
is our investment in county public school property. In 1916 our rural 
school property was valued at $123,205 and only ten counties made a 
better showing. Our country children are fairly well cared for by good 
teachers. There were only twenty-three counties in the State that paid 
their white teachers more than we did in 1914. At that time our average 
was $257. In 1916 it was $289, and only thirty-five counties made a better 
showing. These insufficient salaries are nothing to boast of, consider- 
ing the service the teachers render and the present high cost of living. 
On the whole, and also in specific detail, our school system is gradually 
■becoming modern and praiseworthy. As our industries develop, it will 
be more and more difficult to hold good tenants on the farms of the 
county. Good county schools are the best investment our landowners 
can make. 



Where We Lead 61 

Rockingham ranks twenty-ninth in size, but only nine have more rural 
population per square mile. This density of country population means 
abundant labor for mills and factories. Rockingham is moving ahead 
rapidly in manufactures, but she will lag behind in agriculture unless 
our country schools are brought to the highest possible level of efficiency. 

The next most important improvement is our roads. In 1914 Rock- 
ingham had 313 miles of improved roads, and only eight counties made 
a better showing. Our most pressing need at present is to keep our 
roads in good repair. One of the most serious and frequent mistakes 
is failure to provide for the maintenance of improved highways. The 
expression, "permanent improvement," is a delusion and snare. The 
permanency of road improvement depends upon the character of main- 
tenance. The sand-clay, stone, or gravel surface, and the side ditches 
as well as the foundations of the highway, need constant attention, 
similar to the care given the steel rails and the roadbeds of railroads. 

Our Farm Interests 

Rockingham County ranked second in tobacco culture in 1910. To- 
bacco is the main money crop of the county, although wheat, corn, hay, 
and forage are also important crops. 

In the census year we had 8,568 cattle of all kinds, which was 26 per 
1,000 acres. It was very few, but it was 3 above the State average and 
only 35 counties made a better showing. We need more and better farm 
animals. It is the one fundamental farm necessity of the county. In 
1910 we were 81 per cent below the level of even a lightly stocked farm 
area, which is one animal unit to every five acres. 

We had 7.018 cattle in 1860 and only 8,568 in 1910. Which is to say, 
while our population nearly quadrupled in number our cattle increase 
was barely 20 per cent. 

In conclusion, I would say that even though Rockingham has made 
great progress during the last forty years she is by no means living up 
to her opportunities and privileges. Rockingham is a great wealth- 
producing but a poor w^ealth-retaining county. 

When our farmers have learned to keep at home the $2,130,000 
expended yearly for imported food and feed products, then Rockingham 
will move to the forefront as a county. Better home conditions, better 
school and church support, better public roads, and greater attention 
to public health and sanitation depend on greater wealth and on the 
greater willingness of our people to surrender their wealth for com- 
munity progress and prosperity. 

To hold down the wealth they create in tobacco from year to year, 
our farmers must produce at home bread and meat, fruits and vegetables, 
canned goods and the like, suflScient for home consumption. Their 
live-stock needs to be quadrupled in number and greatly improved in 
quality, and this live-stock must be supported on home-raised grain, 
hay, and forage. 



62 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

Then the money crops can be used to enlarge and equip their farms, 
improve their homes, increase their comforts and luxuries, swell their 
bank accounts, and in general make life on the farm more attractive. 
When this condition is met, the per capita country wealth of Rockingham 
will soon pass beyond the State average and in a few years will reach 
the average of the country people in Iowa, which is not $191 but $3,386. 

Cotton and tobacco farmers with food and feed to buy always stay 
poor; bread-and-meat farmers with food and feed to sell always get rich. 

Tobacco farming on a live-at-home basis would make Rockingham 
County the richest farm area in the United States in ten years. 

WHERE WE LEAD 

The figures at the left margin show how many counties rank ahead 
of Rockingham. We are ahead of the State averages in the particulars 
listed below. 

Rank. 

10th in population. 1910 census 36,442 

12th in total white population. 1910 25,965 

22ndi in total negro population, 1910 10,474 

3rd in decrease in negro population, 1900-1910, per cent 6.3 

22nd in marriages per 1.000 population, 15 years and over... 12 

3rd in suicides, average rate per million inhabitants 2 

6th in female workers in factories. Number in 1915 1,307 

19th in total taxable wealth in 1916 $13,371,387 

11th in investment in rural school property, 1916 $123,205 

8th in school attendance on enrollment, per cent 80 

11th in investment in automobiles. 1915 $600,000 

27th in automobile upkeep per inhabitant, 1916 $15.56 

9th in amount spent on school buildings and supplies, 

1913-'14 $15,134 

20th in average salaries paid white rural teachers. 1913-'14.. $257.37 
36th in average salaries paid white teachers, town and coun- 
try. 1916 $289.00 

34th in total revenue from local school tax districts in 

1913-'14 $13,579 

19th in farm-land tax values, according to the census valua- 
tion, in 1910, per cent 34 

10th in State income tax paid, in 1916 $1,733 

15th in professional taxes paid in 1916 $315 

8th in improved roads, January 1, 1915, per cent of total. . . 52 

10th in cattle increase, 1900-1910, per cent 33 

9th in sheep increase. 1900-1910. per cent 22 

2nd in tobacco production in pounds. 1910 8,279,194 

20th in total crop wealth produced in 1910 $2,330,409 

26th in non-food crops produced, tobacco, etc., 1910 $995,385 

17th in corn production per acre, bushels, 1910 16 

22nd in wheat production per acre, bushels, 1910 9 

24th in hay and forage production in 1910. total crop. tons.. 4,580 

16th in wheat production per inhabitant, 1910, bushels 3.83 



Our Problems and Their Solution 

W. E. Price, Madison, N. C. 

In these studies we have presented to the people of Rockingham, to 
the best of our limited power, the achievements and delinquencies of 
our home-county — her faults as well as her virtues. 

It is my purpose here to gather up the loose ends of these details, to 
weld t)iem into a simple expression of our fundamentally great and 
pressing needs, and further to try, with the means at our disposal, to 
interpret these needs and point the way so far as I am able to a broader 
and better community life in Rockingham. Nor need this be a depress- 
ing task. We have great reason to be proud of our heritage and our 
present possessions and advantages, but we should not let complacency 
blind us to our deficiencies. Let us examine our faults courageously, 
locate the causes clearly, and then proceed in a telling manner to make 
our civilization healthsome and wholesome, prosperous and happy in 
every detail of community life. 

It has seemed to me that all the evils, all the backwardness of Rock- 
ingham, result from three crippling, disabling conditions: (1) an ill- 
balanced farm system, (2) the growth of our industries at the expense 
of our country civilization, and (3) the incubus of excessive illiteracy, 
sheer and near. I shall treat each of these in detail. 

The pressing needs of our county are: 

1. A Better Balanced Farm System 

All civilizations are directly dependent for their raw materials, their 
power, and their culture upon the dwellers in the countryside. The 
tillers of the land, the foresters, and the miners are the producers of the 
basic wealth of the state. They foster national ideals and determine at 
last the level of national consciousness. Peace and progress are the 
blessings of a land of intelligent, prosperous farmers. If its land citi- 
zenry is struggling and poor, a country can have no prolific life. 

It is vital to us. therefore, to find out the living conditions of our 
farmers and their estate in life. 

The 1910 census shows that we have a per capita country wealth in 
farm properties in Rockingham amounting to only $191. It is a very 
small figure and it gives us a very low standing. There are 87 coun- 
ties in the State with greater per capita country wealth. In Alleghany 
it was $560, in the United States $994, and in Iowa $3,386. 

You see, our farmers are poor. They have too little money with 
which to introduce experiments, or carry out ideas. This fact probes to 



64 BocMngham County: Economic and Social 

the very quick of our country-life problems. To have contented boys 
and girls, to have good roads, good schools, good churches, and fine 
farms, we must have money — far more money than we have ever had in 
our country regions. Why is it that in a county whose natural re- 
sources are unequaled the country people are so poor? Clearly our 
methods must be wrong. We produce enormous wealth; in the last 
census year it amounted to $2,330,409. Where does all this money go? 
In that same year we sent out of the county $2,130,000 for imported food 
and feed supplies. It was a million dollars more than our tobacco pro- 
duced. Here is where we lose. We slave to raise tobacco, and \ye neg- 
lect livestock and food crops. Year by year we create a vast volume of 
farm wealth; but we no sooner get it than we ride our wagons to town 
and send it away to the Western farmers. Every year this tremendous 
drain increases. Every three years we produce as much wealth as we 
have been able to accumulate in 125 years. This is vitally wrong. Our 
lands are admirably suited for the raising of food and feed; we have 
unequaled pasturage possibilities. We can easily raise all the meat 
and bread we need for home consumption. We did it in 1915 under the 
pressure of pinching necessity, and we can do it again, and do it every 
year under the pressure of hard horse-sense. Why do we raise tobacco 
exclusively, when, if we would be self-supporting, we could soon be roll- 
ing in wealth like the farmers of Iowa? 

For many years influences have been at work upon our farmers to 
make them persist in farm customs that must forever keep them poor. 
Tbe impoverishment of the South by the Civil War caused great num- 
bers of whites and negroes to become tenant farmers as the only way 
of support. Today there are 1,738 landless, homeless farmers in Rock- 
ingham. More than half, or 54.5 per cent, of all our farms are in the 
hands of tenants. Two-thirds of our tenant farmers are white and nine- 
tenths of them are croppers. 

We have been so long used to the tenancy system of farming that we 
have become dull to the fact that "it is the most vicious and wasteful 
method of land cultivation known anywhere on earth today." Farm 
buildings fall into ruin, fertile soils are worn out and abandoned to 
gullies and pine thickets. There are 103,000 acres of such land in Rock- 
ingham today. The tenant raises tobacco and neglects food and feed 
crops — either by choice or under the pressure of the supply-merchant or 
the landlord. Through his lack of home-raised bread and meat he finds 
himself at the mercy of the supply merchant, and every year on a 
poorer farm. He moves about from place to place. His children fall 
out of school, and his family wanders beyond the reach of church and 
Sunday school influences. Here is one of the reasons why we have 
2,300 native white illiterates in Rockingham, and 15,000 people of re- 
sponsible ages outside of our churches. 



Our Problems and Their Solution ■ 65 

The owner as well as the tenant is absorbed by the rush for the 
tobacco dollar. As a result, our tobacco money, whatever be the mar- 
ket price, pays barely half our bill for imported food products from 
year to year. The bread-and-meat farmers of the West got two million 
dollars of our hard-earned money in 1910, and over four million dollars 
of it in 1917. No wonder they get rich while we stay poor. We have 
cleared nearly all of our virgin forest in our mad search for gold, when 
It has all the time been in our very hands, if we would but husband our 
resources, and care for our land, and produce tobacco on a bread-and- 
meat basis. 

Our farmers do not attempt to supply our towns with food, because 
they have been given small encouragement to do so. The townspeople 
bid eagerly for tobacco, but neglect to provide well regulated public 
market facilities for food products. The buying and distribution of 
country produce has been left in the hands of small middlemen, who 
through unwise and frequently unfair practices have killed the tendency 
of our farmers to raise food products for sale. Indeed, they have en- 
couraged them to raise tobacco and buy their food and feed supplies. 
The merchant thrives, the farmer loses, and the town consumers pay 
high prices. Under our present plan, or lack of plan, consumers get too 
little for their money, and farmers get too little for their produce, and 
the middlemen get the bulk of the consumer's dollar. 

Thus our farmers, heedless of the fact that a tobacco crop is a use- 
less crop, unless he raises his own supplies and retains his tobacco 
money or a reasonable share of it, continues this suicidal policy from 
year to year and remains a poor owner or a tenant all his life, with his 
land more and more exhausted. The townman, looking greedily at the 
farmer's tobacco money, seizes it, and neglects to provide places where 
farm products other than tobacco can be sold. In this way he discour- 
ages diversified farming in the nearby country regions. He is blind to 
the fact that by impoverishing his farm neighbors he is insuring his 
own ultimate loss, for merchants cannot thrive in a town supported by 
a poor back-country. 

What can we do about it? Clearly, in the first place, we must encour- 
age tenants to buy land, and farm owners must take a more active in- 
terest in the cultivation and preservation of their properties. How can 
we get tenants to become farm owners? Our schools play a big part 
here. We must educate our farm children in modern practices. We 
need two or three good farm-life schools in which our country children 
can learn what they need to know about well-balanced farm systems — 
about money crops, food crops, livestock, farm management, salesman- 
ship, farm credit, and the like. Landowners should encourage food 
production and soil improvement, and show tenants how to save money 
and buy farms. The home-loving, land-owning instinct must be de- 

5 



66 Rockingham County: Economic and Social 

veloped in our tenant farmers. Our banks could interest themselves 
actively in helping thrifty tenants to buy small farms on easy terms. 
Every citizen intelligently concerned about the county should interest 
himself in putting an end to our disastrous system of farm tenancy. 
It can be done, if we want to do it. 

A second step to be taken towards a better farm system is the wide 
introduction of livestock farming. A well stocked farm is essential 
for self-support, for the diversification of crops, and for the enrichment 
of fields. Livestock farming goes hand in hand with farm prosperity. 
It is so in the Middle West, and it can be so in Rockingham. Besides 
furnishing an adequate supply of foods; hogs, cattle, and sheep are 
absolutely necessary to efficient farming. With sufficient equipment, 
livestock farming is the most pleasant of all farm work. Rockingham 
is woefully deficient in livestock. In 1910 we were 81 per cent below 
the level of even a lightly stocked farm area, and we produced only 
54.2 pounds of pork per inhabitant instead of the 122 pounds we needed. 
All told, we imported nearly two million pounds of meat of all sorts in 
the census year. Think of it! We never can hope to hold down our 
tobacco money in Rockingham until we cut our imported meat bills 
down to zero. 

How are our farmers to get the money they need for more and better 
livestock? Bankers and banks play a very important part in the life 
of any community. Many of our farmers, when they catch the vision 
of profitable, comfortable livestock farming will not have the necessary 
capital. Our banks may safely lend their money on good livestock. 
In these times no loans are better secured. It is wise to lend money to 
reliable farmers for productive purposes: say, to buy land for more ex- 
tensive farming, to build good fences, to build feed and shelter barns, to 
import good stock males, and so on. 

When our farmers once get safely settled in the habit of raising cover 
crops, saving every bit of manure, and returning it to the fields, caring 
for their animals, and raising both food and tobacco, they and the 
county will be prosperous. 

In order to serve both consumers and producers to the best advan- 
tage, Leaksville-Spray, Reidsville, and Madison should have free public 
markets for country foodstuffs. 

To put our farming to the front we must do three things: we must 
eliminate tenancy, introduce livestock farming widely, and establish 
local markets for home-raised food and feed supplies. 

2. A Safe Balance Between Af?riculture and Manufacture 

Rockingham is jubilant over the expansion of her industries, and 
truly we have a right to be proud. Spray and Leaksville are becoming 



Our Problems and Their Solution 67 

great textile centers, and Reidsville is far to the front in tobacco manu- 
facture. Yet we have barely begun to realize our manufacturing possi- 
bilities. Today we have 43 manufacturing plants, 16 of which are 
textile mills, with a combined capital stock of $2,666,000 or more. 
These are the figures of the State Labor Commissioner in 1916. With 
our natural advantages we should lead in the industrial life of the 
State. We have ample hydro-electric possibilities. We are in the 
center of a rich region of raw materials, in the heart of the tobacco 
belt, on the edge of the great cotton fields of the South, and close to a 
plentiful supply of hardwoods, in a region admirably suited to grain, 
hay, and livestock production. We are a thickly settled farm area. 
Labor is abundant. The labor cost of production can be low, if only we 
can develop our food producing possibilities and thus keep the cost of 
living on a reasonable level. 

Meanwhile, we must keep in mind the fundamental fact that a large 
number of small plants is better than a small number of large plants 
concentrated in a single center or two. We need knitting mills, hosiery 
mills, flour mills, and woodworking plants scattered all over the county, 
wherever railway or improved highway facilities make such enterprises 
possible. There is room in Rockingham for a large increase in the 
number of mills and factories, and there is need for an immense multi- 
plication of city consumers of farm produce. At present the farm 
wagons on any Saturday of the year glut our little cities and reduce to 
little or nothing the prices the farmers get. 

But we are rapidly developing the populous market centers that th« 
county needs. The inhabitants of our mill centers have trebled in 
number since 1910. Our towns and villages now contain one-third of 
the people of the county. As manufacture waxes great in our county, 
we will be wise to see to it that agriculture does not dwindle and almost 
disappear as in Durham and many other counties in the industrial area 
of the State and the United States. A sane, safe balance must be main- 
tained between the town and country civilizations of our county, or 
both manufacture and agriculture will pay heavy penalties in the long 
run. 

The dangers that confront agriculture lie in the cityward drift of 
country populations, in decreasing farm labor, in the increasing diffi- 
culty of securing good tenants and wage hands of any sort, in increas- 
ing areas of idle land, in lower land values and rents, in the decreasing 
support for country day schools, Sunday schools, and churches. The 
dangers are summed up when we say that increasing industrialism 
threatens depression in farming as a business in Rockingham, and in 
country civilization as a county asset. Even tobacco farming has al- 
most come to an end in Durham County, and cotton culture has disap- 



68 Bochingham County: Economic and Social 

peared, although Durham city is one of our great cotton and tobacco 
factory centers. The owners of country property in Rockingham can 
well afford to consider this drift of things — and to act wisely before it 
is too late. 

The dangers that confront manufacture in an area of dwindling 
agriculture lie in the increased cost of living which forces wages up 
and profits down. If four million dollars worth of bread and meat must 
be imported into Rockingham this year, a swarming multitude of mid- 
dlemen must be rewarded. Imported foods mean inflated bills for 
pantry supplies. When the cost of living rises, wages must rise. If 
not, then capital tends to destroy the labor that helps to produce its 
dividends; and whenever this is the case discontent and wage-and- 
labor troubles arise. It is easy to raise wages, it is hard to lower them. 
It is far wiser to keep wages on a reasonable level by keeping the cost 
of living on a fair level. And this can be done by a factory center only 
in a well developed food-producing area and by solving the problem of 
markets for home-raised food supplies. 

Having considered the dangers that confront both agriculture and 
manufacture in the development of life and business in our county, let us 
examine the policies that are necessary to preserve a safe balance be- 
tween the two. 

1. Rockingham must become an area of prosperous home-owning, 
food-producing farmers, a region of tobacco production on a bread-andi- 
meat, live-at-home basis. Livestock farming and diversified farming 
develop together and neither is possible without the other. The mill 
owners, the bankers, and the merchants of our city centers must en- 
courage food and feed farming in self-defense. They must encourage 
the ownership of farms by capable, aspiring tenants, and the importa- 
tion of improved breed-sires; and above all they must provide free 
public market facilities that will bring consumers and producers of 
food products together with mutual advantage. In no other way can 
the farmer get more for his produce and the consumer more for his 
money. It is not an easy problem to solve, but it is worth the best 
thinking of our captains of industry, because here is almost the only 
chance to keep the cost of living and the wage scale on a reasonable 
level. 

2. Then, again, a broad business statesmanship will lead our city 
centers to vote for county-wide taxes for better country schools, for a 
more rapid extension of improved public highways, for farm-life schools, 
for school supervisors, a whole-time public health officer, a home dem- 
onstration agent — for everything that will tend to create prosperity, 
high courage, and goodt cheer in the country regions of the county. 
There is no limit to the development of a city seated at the center of a 



• Our Prohlems and Their Solution 69 

prosperous food-producing farm region; but the time has come when 
decline and depression in a trade area punishes every business interest 
in the city center. 

The cityward drift of country people is inevitable under the condi- 
tions) of modern industrialism. The thing to do is to make life effi- 
cient, satisfying, and wholesome for those that love country life and 
prefer to remain in the country regions. 

Our country people need the best possible schools and roads and 
churches, otherwise the mill wages and the s"ocial advantages of our 
towns will attract out of the farm regions the best labor and leave 
behind the poorest. 

The secret of industrial as well as agricultural success in Rockingham 
lies in the sane balance we preserve between them. In town and coun- 
try alike we must educate on the highest levels in the most liberal ways 
possible, and we must have definite, wise policies of activity, if farm 
and factory life are to develop side by side with mutual advantage. 

3. The Elimination of Illiteracy 

And finally. In every forward move we make or try to make in 
Rockingham, we run against a certain intangible resistance which 
makes heartening success in any kind of social betterment rare. It is 
the dull, blank wall of illiteracy and ignorance which everywhere balks 
us as an upward struggling people. We quote the University Neics 
Letter of March 7, 1917: 

"Perhaps the most menacing of all social ills and the most difficult to 
cure is illiteracy. The most menacing because illiteracy and poverty 
go hand in hand. They are born twins and boon companions through- 
out life. Few of the perils of democracy can be abolished or even held 
in check in the presence of sheer-illiteracy and near-illiteracy in over- 
whelming mass. Together they threaten both the church and the state; 
and both in self-defense are called on to sponge illiteracy off the map." 

Our illiterates in Rockingham are more than one-fifth of all our males 
of voting age, more than one-sixth of our entire population ten years of 
age and over, nearly one-eighth of our entire white population, and 
more than a seventh of all our white voters. In addition to these 
appalling totals, consider the vast number of our people who can read 
and don't read, who can think and don't think, who have only a meager 
acquaintance with the great events and problems of the world they live 
in, who are uninformed or misinformed about every vital concern of 
life, who are unalert, apathetic, prejudiced, suspicious, and unorganiz- 
able in every worthy enterprise, but who can be fooled by every design- 
ing trickster and voted in herds against every constructive measure of 
improvement and progress, relief and reform. 



70 RocJcingham County: Economic and Social 

Illiteracy, sheer and near, lies at the root of every economic and 
social ill in our beloved county. It explains our excessive tobacco 
culture under a farm-tenancy, supply-merchant, crop-lien system; our 
neglect of livestock and food crops; our hundred thousand worn out 
acres, our enormous bills for imported breadstuffs, and our excessive 
country poverty. Only dense ignorance will explain why a man strug- 
gles on as a tenant or as a small farm owner letting his land wash 
away under such a system, and wasting the precious resources of his 
soil and his soul, when God's richest county waits to be developed by 
the sweat of his brow and his brain. Ignorance is back of the apathy, 
the indifference to the ills of our country civilization, and the uncon- 
cern that cripples and retards education and religion in our countryside. 

The greatest problems of our mill centers arise from illiteracy. 
Children of high school age are held out of school to work in factories 
and soon they fall into adult illiteracy. It explains the careless waste 
of wages, however large, the small bank account savings of mill hands, 
their restless discontent, the incessant moving from mill to mill, the 
lack of interest in churches, day schools, and Sunday schools, the feeble 
sense of citizenship and responsibility for community morals, law and 
order. An intelligent factory population, fairly treated, is thrifty in 
times of prosperity and steady in times of depression. An illiterate, 
ignorant mass of wage-earners can be stirred into any kind of foolish 
frenzy at any time by any mischief-maker. If the citizenry of a factory 
center is woefully illiterate, nought but bitter results can be expected 
in the long run. If our mill centers are to become cities beautiful, the 
larger spirit of intelligence must be appealed to; and in particular 
good trade schools must be established. Great strides are being taken 
in our city schools. The school at Spray is magnificent, but we should 
not stop here. Every child betv/een six and sixteen ought to be in 
school. Vocational schools should be provided, offering well planned 
courses in night sessions for aspiring mill workers. 

Poor day-school attendance is the cause of all our illiteracy. Moon- 
light schools are important, but daylight schools are more so. In 1910, 
the white children between the ages of six and fourteen who were not 
in school for even a single day numbered 1.750. In 1915-'16 they num- 
bered 2,373. Nearly a third of all our white country children are 
habitually out of school. Here is a dire menace to progress and pros- 
perity in our county. The man who does not give the school his whole 
support, who grudges the attendance of his child, is as much a traitor 
and a slacker to the best interest of his county as the cowardly evader 
of his country's call to arms. 

Illiteracy, then, is the active, foundational cause of all our problems. 
Give us an intelligent people and they will farm intelligently, they will 



Our Prohlems and Their Sohttion 71 

realize their manufacturing possibilities, and they will have fine roads 
and churches, and they will safely solve all the perplexing problems of 
a progressive democracy. 

The fight against ignorance is our fundamental fight. How shall we 
conduct it? It is an age-old fight. We must change our method of 
attack. Our churches and preachers andi Sunday school teachers must 
be aroused. More than three-fifths of our people are outside our 
churches. Our non-church members numbered 15,657 in 1906, and 
illiteracy is the main cause of this deplorable state of affairs. 

We must have better teachers, and we must pay them better. In 1916 
the average salary of our white country teachers was only $274. We 
cannot expect any intelligent mortal to go into teaching as his life work 
if his pay is as little as that. Teachers have the most important civic 
duty in the life of every community. They should be required to be 
highly eflacient, and they should be paid the highest possible wages. 

Again, we should greatly change the nature of our schools. It is 
high time for us to consider the kind of education that our town and 
country boys and girls most need. Every child should be given a 
thorough grounding in the fundamentals; but why should we attempt 
to force children who have no aptitude for culture courses to take the 
Latin and upper-class mathematics uniformly required in our high 
schools? The common result is for such children to fall into discour- 
agement, and then out of school years too soon. Why not teach them 
some practical trade? Our county desperately needs skilled farmers, 
mechanics, laborers. Let us show our farmer boys, by demonstration, 
the right way to farm. We should establish at least three good farm- 
life schools under competent headships. They could be located in the 
country near Reidsville, near Leaksville-Spray. and between Madison 
and Ellisboro. Then the process of selection could have full play. The 
children who crave pure culture courses can have them in the State 
high schools at Bethany, Madison, Ruffin, and Stoneville, or in the local 
high schools at Wentworth and Spray, or in the city high schools of 
Leaksville and Reidsville. But those who have a natural aptitude for 
agriculture or the trades should have a chance at these vocational sub- 
jects in the vocational schools of the towns and the farm-life schools of 
the country. 

To have good teachers and good schools we must have more money. 
Only 18 out of our 68 country school districts levied local school taxes 
in 1915-'16. Our local school tax rate, town and country, was only 
$4.49 per $1,000 of taxable property. This rate is one of the lowest in 
the State. Schools are all-important. We should cheerfully bear heavy 
burdens to bring them to the highest possible level of efficiency. 

The final step in eliminating illiteracy is the brave enforcement of 
our compulsory school attendance law. Public sentiment needs to be 



72 Roclxingham Count ij : Economic and Social 

aroused, and our officers sustained by the intelligence and courage of 
the county. This is no time for us to be slackers because of fear of 
disturbing or displeasing someone. Every child of age should be in 
school. The University News Letter says: 

"What shall we do about illiteracy in North Carolina? Ninety-four 
per cent of it is rural, and 85 per cent of it is adult. Furthermore, 
white adult illiteracy increases steadily. It has risen from 13.3 per 
cent in 1850 to 14.6 per cent in 1910. Something must be done. We 
believe strongly that it is a church as well as a state problem. 

"Andi, furthermore, we do not believe that it can ever be cured if the 
church leaves it to the state. It is profoundly a religious concern, and 
we need to put into the war against illiteracy the fire and fervor of 
religious zeal. 

"Illiteracy menaces the church as well as the state. The people 
perish for lack of knowledge; and it is a fundamental social situation 
that the church will ignore at its peril everywhere. 

"The Moonlight School and other agencies dealing with adult illiter- 
acy ought to challenge the missionary zeal of preachers as well as 
teachers, Sunday school superintendents as well as day school super- 
intendents, and church missionaries as well as state authorities." 

In truth, no social problem of any sort can be solved where sheer and 
near illiteracy are massive enough to give demagogues a chance to fool 
the folks wherever any progressive measure is submitted to the popular 
vote. 

It has been my effort in this brief chapter to trace our ills to their 
sources and to suggest as best I could the plans and policies that in my 
opinion will gradually lead our county into a richer and better life. 

Some recent developments are suggestive of a hopeful awakening in 
Rockingham: the recent campaigning of livestock farming, the good 
schools and the welfare work at Spray, an alert county board of com- 
merce and agriculture and its gospel of bread-and-meat farming, city 
market facilities, and improved stock males, and the agitation in favor 
of farm-life schools. All these movements are forward-looking, and all 
of them challenge the intelligence, the devotion, and the courage of all 
the people who are capable of having a genuine, generous interest in 
their mother-county. 



Sources of Information 

Wheeler's History and Memoirs of the Counties of North Carolina. 

Timber Resources of Rockingham. — North Carolina Geological and 
Economic Survey, Press Bulletin No. 117. 

Biennial Reports, Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Caro- 
lina, 1908-'9 and 1915-'16. 

United States Census Reports for 1850, 1900, and 1910. 

Clay Products Reports. — ^North Carolina Geological Survey. 

Reports of State Health Boards, 1913-'14, and 1915-'16. 

Reports of the North Carolina State Tax Commission, 1910 to 1917. 

Report of North Carolina Department of Labor and Printing, 1914, 1915, 
and 1916. 

Files of the University of North Carolina Neios Letter. 

Club Studies in the Laboratory of the North Carolina Club at the Uni- 
versity. 

Files of Newspaper Clippings of the Department of Rural Economics 
and Sociology, University of North Carolina. 

The Federal Census of Industries, 1914. 

Manual of North Carolina, issued by the North Carolina Historical Com- 
mission. — R. D. W. Connor. 

Folder of the Reidsville Commercial and Agricultural Association. 



Brown's Warehouse 

FOR THE SALE OF 

LEAF TOBACCO 



JOHN SIMPSON and JOE GLENN 

ROCKINGHAM BOYS 

THE LEADERS OF THE WINSTON-SALEM 
TOBACCO MARKET 



Our total sales for 1917 crop averaged 
$33.01 per hundred 



This record leads all houses and markets in 

America in average for that quantity of 

tobacco. We sold nearly 10 million 

pounds 

YOU SHOULD SELL WITH YOUR COUNTY BOYS 
AND MAKE MONEY, TOO 

Your friends, 

SIMPSON & GLENN 

PROPRIETORS BROWN'S WAREHOUSE 



1888 1918 



I FRANCIS WOMACK 



INSURANCE 

REIDSVILLE. NORTH CAROLINA 

OLDEST OFFICE IN THE COUNTY 
EXPERIENCED AND RELIABLE SERVICE 



W. H. GROGAN 

! DEALER IN 

I GROCERIES AND FEEDSTUFF 

I 
I 

i 

c 

I 

j STONEVILLE, N. C. 

i 



DRY GOODS AND NOTIONS 

HONEST WEIGHT GUARANTEED 



THIS SPACE BELONGS TO 



j H. KOY MARTIN 

I A very busy man 



I But always glad for you to stop in to see him when in MAYODAN, N. C. 

i He runs a Jewelry Store, Optical Parlor and a Repair Shop 

I for Watches and Jewelry — each one a complete 

I department, with eleven years experience 

I satisfying customers. 

! STOKE and OFFICE 

I IN POST OFFICE 

i 



BUILDING Mayodan, N. C. 



I Do Your Bit I 

I Help Your Uncle Samuel | 

I When You Can j 

I Piedmont Drug Company | 

I "ON THE CORNER-ON THE SQUARE" MADISON, NORTH CAROLINA | 



5 ^ 

i W. G. LINDSAY. President W. R. STOTZ, Manager I 

I j 

! Rockingham Telephone Company i 

! MADISON, N. C. i 

! j 

I The management believes the development of our section depends largely upon | 

c closer and quicker communication. Farmers are invited to | 

I connect rural lines on to this system. | 

I GET IN TOUCH WITH THE WORLD | 



i i 

I GILLIAM GRISSOM, President M. L. HEINER, Vice-President I 

! 

1 j 

I BOULEVARD BANK AND TRUST CO. | 

i p. H. GWYNN, Cashier j 

I LEAKSVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA i 

I 
2 

I IDOULEVARD BANK AND TRUST CO. invites your patronage and finds I 

! -*-' pleasure in doing business with you. Four Per Cent on Time Deposits. I 

! i 

! i 

I T>OULEVARD REAL ESTATE CO. will buy or sell your property, lend you j 

I ■*-' money on real estate, insure your home, household goods or merchandise. | 

I 

I Z>OULEVARD BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION will build you ! 

I -^-^ 3l house and make you comfortable and happy. | 

i i 



I 



R. F. D. 
LEAKSVILLE, N. C. 



Registered 
and High Grade 

Guernsey Cattle 



i I 
j i 



! SUNSET FARM i ! 



i J 

i i 
i f 
i i 
i i 
i i 
i i 
I I 



Y. M. C. A. 

SPRAY. N.C. 

An ideal place to spend your 

leisure hours when 

in town 

Reading Room, Shower Baths. 
Gymnasium. Etc. 

RATES 
S3. 00 per Year 50c. per Month 



J. H. MOORE, President W. C. RUFFIN, V.-Pre»ident J. O. RAGSDALE, Cashier 

THE BANK OF MADISON 

MADISON. N. C. 

Capital $20,000.00 Surplus and Profits $50,000.00 

Total Resources Over Half 
Million Dollars 

We solicit the business of those desiring safe 
and conservative banking 



J. L. LASHMIT 

SHOES 



THAT'S ALL 

It Pays to Pay Cash 

WINSTON-SALEM. N. C. 



I ! 
i ! 
i I 
i I 
j [ 
i I 
i ! 
i I 
i I 
i ! 
i ! 
i I 



OUR MOTTO 

"Have What 

You Want When You 

Want it" 

Variety Store Co, 

C. p. SMITH, Manager 
LEAKSVILLE, N.C. 



I I 

I WE FURNISH YOUR HOME COMPLETE [ 

I WITH I 



FOR LESS MONEY FOR CASH 



I GOOD FURNISHINGS I 
i 

I We give ten per cent discount for cash on all purchases, except Vocalion Talking 

I Machines. Our goods are all marked in plain figures, and one price to all customers. 

I Come in to see us and look through our big stock. 

I We will welcome you just the same if you buy or do not buy. 

J 

i BURTON-CHANCE- WALKER CO. 1 

i i 

I HOUSE-FURNISHINGS AND UNDERTAKING | 

[ AGENTS FOR VOCALION TALKING MACHINES-THE BEST ONE | 

I Reidsville, North Carolina j 

I 



i 

i 
i 
i 

i For the Sale of Leaf Tobacco \ 

\ 
I 
! 

[ We GORRELLS all the time are on the job for selling 



Gorr ell's Warehouse \ 

i 
i 
i 
i 

Winston-Salem, North Carolina j 

i 
j 

I tobacco for the most monej'. We operate two of the best [ 



= houses, ''Gorrell's" and "Farmers," and cordially invite j 

I 3'our patronage. Hoping w^e may have the pleasure of | 

I selHng for you, and with assurance of our best efforts and f 

i best prices, we remain. Your friends, ! 



I GORRELL BROTHERS. j 



The \ 

I 

i 
I 

Has had a wonderful growth in circulation! \ 

People want the news! j 



Greensboro Daily News 



and that's why THE DAILY NEWS is spending more than any other newspaper in | 

North Carolina to give the best possible news services. Full Associated Press, the | 

London Times Cable service, David Lawrence's daily articles, and a strong Washing- I 

ton Bureau, round out a complete service. I 

The subscription rate is still S7.00, Daily and Sunday. Write for sample. ! 



GREENSBORO DAILY NEWS, Greensboro, N. C. 



The Best Quality at Lowest Prices 

Is Our Motto 



Our experience enables us to serve you to your best advantage. i 

Our line of Watches, Clocks, Jewelry and Silverware is of the = 

highest character. Our stock is the largest in the County. | 

We invite your inspection. I 

C. E, PYRON 1 

I 

i 
i 



JEWELER 

REPAIRING AND ENGRAVING 

BOULEVARD STREET, SPRAY, NORTH CAROLINA 

PHONE No. 257 



i 
J. S. HILL & COMPANY | 

DEALERS IN | 

i 

J 

Everything in Men's, Ladies' and | 

Children's Ready-to- Wear [ 



Clothing and Gents'^ Furnishings 



Shoes for the Whole Family — High Quality and Low Price 



Phone 36 Boulevard Street Leaksville, N. C. | 

j 



J. J. VanNOPPEN 

DENTIST 

Over 
Bank of Spray 

SPRAY, N. C. 
House Phone 156 



i i 
i I 

II 

i ! 
i ! 
i I 

1 I 

i I 
i I 



Residence Phone 
223 



Office Phone I 
388 1 



Dr. J. ED. WARREN 

DENTIST 
All Kinds of Dental Work 



JUNIOR BUILDING 
BOULEVARD ST. SPRAY, N. C. 



J. W. NORMAN, 
President 



T. W. DUNN, 
V. 'President 



G. C GAMMON, 
Secretary and Treasurer 



Leaksville-Spray Insurance 
and Realty Co. 



PIKE INSUKANCE 



i 

i 

REAL ESTATE I 



OFFICE: PEOPLES BANK BUILDING 
TELEPHONE No. 92 

LEAKSVILLE, NOKTH CAROLINA 



Boulevard 
Millinery Co. 

DRY GOODS 
and NOTIONS 

BOULEVARD ST. SPRAY, N. C. 
}Ve Invite Your Patronage 



i 1 

I I W. J. Patterson 

i i 

i i 

i I 

i i 

i i 

i i 

i ! 

i i 

i I 



General 
Merchandise 
and 
Furniture 



CHURCH ST. 



SPP.AY. N. C. 



i 

i 

We have what you want \ 

J 



RockingKam Automobile Company i 

AUTOMOBILESandAUTOMOBILE SUPPLIES [ 



AUTHORIZED AGENTS 

FOR THE SALE OF 

FORD CARS 



1 MADISON, NORTH CAROLINA 



The safely of your deposits 

You never need to worry about the safety 

of yourmoney when deposited 

in this Bank 

This institution is a member of the Federal Reserve 
System and all its affairs are under the supervision of 
the United States Government. 

Consequently, depositors are safeguarded in every pos- 
sible respect and our methods of doing business are 
along safe, conservative lines. 

We welcome small as well as large deposits and pay 
four per cent interest compounded quarterly on deposits 
in our savings department. 

AMERICAN EXCHANGE NATIONAL BANK 

GREENSBORO, N. C. 
Capital $400,000.00 



6 



i When You Sell Your [ 

! Tobacco at I 
j 

J Piedmont Warehouse \ 

' WINSTON I 

It has the careful and best attention | 

i' of the 1 

NORFLEET BOYS I 

i I 

3 Who have spent a lifetime in the 'H'arehouse business ! 

I i 

j This means extra money | 

I in your pocket j 

i I 



BUY 



1 
THE CLOTHES I 

THAT ARE 

Three in One 



I Stylish, Durable and Pleasing 

I WILLIAMS & CO. ReidsviUe, N. C. | 



.>K 



BOULEVARD i 

5c, 10c, 25c I 
STORE 

LEAKSVILLE, N. C. 

"On the Boulevard" 
The Home of Variety Goods 

The Place Where You Save Money 



I BOULEVARD I 
I THEATRE | 



I i 

i i 
i f 
i i 
i i 
i i 
i i 



LEAKSVILLE, N. C. 
"On the Boulevard" 

The Home of High-class 
Photo-Plays 

Matinee and Nights 
All Day on Holidays 



OBSERVER 



BOX 344 



I \ 

THE GAZETTE \ \ PRATT BROS 

[ \ 

\ \ 

\ ! 

i i 

i [ 

i I 

i ! 

i i 



. i 



LEAKSVILLE, N. C. 

Highest Grade 
Job Printing 



Madison, N. C. 
Best Line of 

HARDWARE 

Farm Implements 
Coffins 

See Us if You Want the Best 






I 



C. H. SCALES 

MADISON, N. C. 

FANCY GROCERIES, FEED 

and FARM SUPPLIES 



The Store with a Conscience 



I McGEHEE COMPANY 

i MADISON, N. C. 

I DRY GOODS NOTIONS MILLINERY 
- CLOTHING SHOES 

THE BEST, BUT CHEAPEST 

McGEHEE COMPANY 

MADISON, N. C. 



PENN HARDWARE AND FURNITURE CO. 

MADISON, N. C. 

Dealers in Paints, Oils, Building Materials 

Hardware, Furniture, Undertakers 

Farm Implements 

WAGONS AND BUGGIES 



Jas. M. Vaughn, Pics. T. D. Meader, Vice-Pres. J. C. Thompson, Cashier 

Farmers Bank and Trust Co. 

MADISON, N. C. 

Capital Stock, $15,000.00 

We Pay Four Per Cent, Compounded Quarterly 

You are cordially invited to open an 
account with us 



*!«H 









►<♦:♦ 
I 



The ReidsvIUe Commercial and 
Agricultural Association 

Helps 

Reidsville and Rockingham County 

to 

Help Each Other 

and to 

Help Themselves 



J. M. SHARP. President 




I 
I 

a 

I 

M. T. SMITH, Secretary f 

! 
1 



BOTH 

F. S. WALKER, Farm Demonstration Agent 

MISS MAZIE KIRKPATRICK. Home Demonstration Agent 

HAVE OFFICES IN THE ASSOCIATION ROOMS 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



♦ ^">^'>«">o^''— o»oio— o<i.»o-i»o«»o«>o^o<»o^>o^»<i^ 014 495 035 5 



The I 

Carolina Cotton and Woolen Mills i 

Company i 

Spray, North Carolina I 



i 



OWNERS OF THE FOLLOWING MILLS 



i American Warehouse— Finishing i 

I Athena Spinning Mill— Yarns ! 

I Spray Bleachery— Bleaching | 

I Lily Mill— Dress Ginghams \ 

Spray Woolen Mill— Wool Blankets i 

A thena Knitting Mills — Underwear | 

Bedspread Mill— Counterpanes I 

German- American Mill — Cotton Blankets i 

I Rhode Island Mill— Cotton Blankets i 

I Sheeting Mill— Sheets and Pillow-cases I 

i 



The Company is solicitous for the 'welfare and health of 

its thousands of employees, and everything is done that 5 

contributes to their educational, social and economic de- ! 

velopment. | 



i 

I Delightful Environment: Gardens, Play-grounds, Good | 

! Water, Fine Schools, Y. M. C. A., Churches of all denomi- | 

i nations, and 15,000 of the happiest and most contented | 

I people to be found anywhere. \ 



\ 

Further expansion makes it Possible to give \ 

employment to a few families I 



